Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 3, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    teem  \TEEM\   verb
    To teem with something is to be full of that thing, or to have much of that thing inside.

// The river teems with fish.

// The students' minds were teeming with ideas.

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    Examples:
    "Emily Wells' orchestral pop teems with grandly despairing gestures—synth tones as thick and black as crude oil, woodwinds like fluttering wings in the upper reaches of a condemned building." — Jayson Greene, Pitchfork, 21 Apr. 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    Teem and team are not just homophones, they are also etymological kin. Teem comes from Old English tīman or tǣman, which originally meant "to bring forth offspring" or "to give birth to.” That word is related to the ancestor of team, the Old English noun tēam, meaning "offspring, lineage, or group of draft animals." Team can still be used to refer to a brood of young animals, especially pigs or ducks, but both teem and team have otherwise largely left their offspring-related senses behind.

teem

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 2, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    apposite  \AP-uh-zit\   adjective
    Apposite is used to describe what is very appropriate, or what is suitable for an occasion or situation. It is a synonym of apt.

// Before sending the final draft of his novel to his editor, Lyle searched for an apposite quotation that could serve as the book's epigraph.

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    Examples:
    “The fact that Apple can make these stories, many of which have been told before, feel so immediate is a testament to his canny knack for choosing apposite details.” — Seth Mnookin, The New York Times, 6 Jun. 2021
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    Apposite and opposite sound so much alike that you would expect them to have a common ancestor—and they do: the Latin verb pōnere, which means "to place, set.” The prefixes that we see in the pair, ap- and op-, specify the kind of placement. Apposite is from appōnere, meaning “to place near,” and opposite is from oppōnere, one meaning of which is "to place (over or against).” Opposite is of course the far more common word, but apposite is useful too and is, ahem, apposite in descriptions of what is very appropriate or suitable for something, as in “an apposite comment.”

apposite

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 1, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    debunk  \dee-BUNK\   verb
    To debunk something, such as a story, theory, or idea, is to show or expose the falseness of it. 

// The article thoroughly debunks the notion that life exists on Mars.

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    Examples:
    "The idea that dogs spend every waking moment trying to usurp their human masters and become 'the alpha' in the house ... [was] first introduced by a wolf ecologist in the mid-20th Century, [and] was later debunked after ecologists realised that the original observations of dominance behaviours were based on captive wolves (unrelated to one another) kept in a zoo enclosure." — Jules Howard, Science Focus, 19 May 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    To debunk something is to take the bunk out of it—that bunk being “nonsense.” (Bunk is short for the synonymous bunkum, which has political origins.) Debunk has been in use since at least the 1920s, and it contrasts with synonyms like disprove and rebut by suggesting that something is not merely untrue but is also a sham—a trick meant to deceive. One can simply disprove a myth, but if it is debunked, the implication is that the myth was a grossly exaggerated or foolish claim.

debunk

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 30, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    scintillate  \SIN-tuh-layt\   verb
    Scintillate means "to dazzle or impress with liveliness or wit."

// Her hilarious and topical standup routine absolutely scintillated; the audience brought her back for two encores.  

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    Examples:
    “Kimberly Marable's scarred Persephone, torn as Hades' consort between verdant summers above and the steamy underworld below, exudes a lust for life despite all. Her torchy vocals scintillate in ‘Livin' It Up on Top,’ a rousing paean to seizing every moment.” — Michael Grossberg, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 18 Nov. 2021
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    The initial spark of the verb scintillate was the Latin noun scintilla, meaning, well, “spark.” The ember of scintilla in turn developed into the verb scintillāre, “to sparkle.” Scintillate retains this meaning in expressing the action of gleaming, glittery things, as when jewelry or the surface of a lake in full sun scintillates. But the word can and often does mean “to sparkle” in a figurative sense—that is, to dazzle or impress with a brilliant performance—making the word apt for both celestial and cinematic scintillating stars.

scintillate

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 29, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    duress  \dur-RESS\   noun
    Duress, which is typically used with under, refers to force or threats meant to make someone do something. It is used especially of unlawful constraint.  

// The defense asserts that the defendant's confession was made under duress.

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    Examples:
    "The ordinance ... was passed under duress by council members who believed that it would never be implemented." — Gilbert Garcia, The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News Online, 20 May 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    Duress is most often paired with the word under to refer to force or threats meant to make someone do something. For example, someone forced to sign a document signs it “under duress,” and a person held “under duress” is not free to leave but is being constrained, usually unlawfully. (Do not confuse being “under duress” with being “under stress,” which is a much more common occurrence.) Duress is ultimately from Latin durus, meaning "hard," source too of durable and endure.

duress

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    fulsome  \FULL-sum\   adjective
    Fulsome can be a positive term, as when it's used to mean "abundant, copious," or "full and well developed," but it has negative meanings too, such as "overdone" and "excessively flattering."

// The photographs celebrate the island's fulsome biodiversity.

// While most of the speeches expressed sincere appreciation for the outgoing CEO's leadership, some were dense with fulsome and cringeworthy accolades.

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    Examples:
    "The county executive isn't opposed in principle to bonds for housing, but thinks county leaders need to have a more fulsome discussion about tradeoffs such debt would require." — Dan Brendel, The Washington (D.C.) Business Journal, 10 May 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    In the 19th century, fulsome was mostly a literary term used disapprovingly to describe excessive, insincere praise and flattery. This meaning is still current, but since the early 20th century fulsome has been increasingly used with far more positive meanings, among them “abundant, copious” and “full and well developed.” The result is some amount of confusion: a phrase like “fulsome praise” used today without clarifying context may rightly be understood to mean either “abundant praise” or “excessive and obsequious praise.” While some critics object to the pleasanter meanings of fulsome, they are in fact true to the word’s origins: when it was first used in the 14th century fulsome meant “abundant, copious.”

fulsome

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 27, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    jingoism  \JING-goh-iz-im\   noun
    Jingoism is excessive patriotism or nationalism, especially when marked by a belligerent foreign policy.

// When the war began many people were caught up in a wave of jingoism.

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    Examples:
    "War is bad for culture. Not least of all because it turns our cultural institutions into bastions of jingoism." — Annie Levin, The New York Observer, 7 Mar. 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    Jingoism originated during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, when many British citizens were hostile toward Russia and felt Britain should intervene in the conflict. Supporters of the cause expressed their sentiments in a music-hall ditty with this refrain:


  We don't want to fight, yet by jingo if we do,
  
  We've got the ships, we've got the men,
  
  We've got the money, too!


Someone holding the attitude implied in the song became known as a jingo or jingoist, and the attitude itself was dubbed jingoism. The jingo in the tune is probably a euphemism for Jesus.

jingoism

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    culminate  \KUL-muh-nayt\   verb
    Culminate usually means “to reach the highest or a climactic or decisive point,” or "to reach the end or final result of something."

// The festivities will culminate with a spectacular display of fireworks.

// The partnership between the two songwriters culminated at last in a chart-topping single. 

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    Examples:
    “The trail culminates at a mountaintop summit with handcrafted log benches as well as views of Lake Tahoe in one direction, Granite Chief Wilderness in the other.” – The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California), 28 July 2021
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    When a star or other heavenly body culminates, it reaches its highest point above the horizon from the vantage point of an observer on the ground. Culminate was drawn from Medieval Latin culminare, meaning "to crown," specifically for this astronomical application. Its ultimate root is Latin culmen, meaning "top." Today, the word’s typical context is less lofty: it can mean “to reach a climactic point,” as in “a long career culminating in a prestigious award,” but it can also simply mean "to reach the end of something,” as in “a sentence culminating in a period.”

culminate

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 25, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    noisome  \NOY-sum\   adjective
    The word noisome describes what is very unpleasant or disgusting, and is used especially of disgusting smells.

// A noisome stench came from the narrow alley.

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    Examples:
    "In 1905, a 'garbage committee' led by a Mrs. J.G. McLean demanded a more subtle and sanitary L.A. trash management than the noisy and noisome practice of trash cans collected and then dropped with a clang on public sidewalks where, as The Times wrote appetizingly, they lay 'with reminiscences of the day before yesterday's dinner clinging to the sides, there to fester and fry in the fierce rays of the sun.'" — Patt Morrison, The Los Angeles Times, 6 Feb. 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    Noisome looks and sounds like a close relation of noisy, but it’s not. While noisy describes what is excessively loud, noisome typically describes what is excessively stinky. (It is also used to describe things offensive to the senses generally, as well as things that are highly obnoxious, objectionable, or simply harmful.) Noisome comes from the synonymous Middle English noysome, which combined the suffix -some, meaning “characterized by a specified thing,” and the noun noy, meaning “annoyance.” Noisy, incidentally, comes ultimately from Latin nausea, meaning “nausea.”

noisome

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 24, 2022 is:
    
  
  
  
    confidant  \KAHN-fuh-dahnt\   noun
    A confidant is someone to whom secrets are entrusted, and especially a very close friend.

// She told only her closest confidant where she had buried the money.

// The longtime confidant of the disgraced mayor was also brought in for questioning.

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    Examples:
    “Lee Strasberg, the Actors Studio director who was, with his wife, Paula, a confidant and caretaker of Marilyn Monroe, felt that an actor must plumb the depths of her psyche to find the emotional truth of a performance.” –James Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 20 Jan. 2022
  
  
  
    Did you know?
    If you're confident of the trustworthiness of your confidants, you're tuned into the origins of the word confidant. The word comes, via French, from the Italian confidente, meaning "trusting, having trust in," from Latin confīdere, meaning "to put one’s trust in, have confidence in.” Other descendants of confīdere in English include confide, confidence, confident, and confidential, all of which ultimately have Latin fīdere, meaning "to trust (in), rely (on)," as their root. Confidant (and its variant confidante, used especially of a woman) and confident are often confused, a topic about which we have plenty to say.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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