Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 5, 2025 is: lout • \LOUT\  • noun A lout is an awkward brutish person. // It was difficult for us to focus on the movie due to the noise coming from the group of louts seated in front of us. See the entry > Examples: “Fortunately for Vince, Jake is about to sell their mother’s house, and the proceeds should cover his deep debts. As is often the case with ne’er-do-wells, however, Vince doesn’t make anything easy, and [actor Jason] Bateman casts him as an arrogant lout ... who’s always playing the angles to his own benefit, damn the damage he causes to everyone else.” — Nick Schager, The Daily Beast, 18 Sept. 2025 Did you know? Lout belongs to a large group of words that we use to indicate a particular sort of offensive and insensitive person, that group also including such terms as boor, oaf, jerk, and churl. English speakers have used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. Well before the 12th century, however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning “to bow in respect.” No one is quite sure how—or even if—the verb sense developed into a noun meaning “an awkward brutish person.” The noun could have been coined independently, but if its source was the verb, perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing down led over the centuries to the idea that the bowing person was base and awkward as well.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 4, 2025 is: spontaneous • \spahn-TAY-nee-us\  • adjective Spontaneous describes something that is done or said in a natural and often sudden way and without a lot of thought or planning. It can describe a person who does things that have not been planned but that seem enjoyable and worth doing at a particular time. // The kitten captured our hearts, and we made the spontaneous decision to adopt. // He's a fun and spontaneous guy, always ready for the next big adventure. See the entry > Examples: "The Harlem Renaissance was filled with poetry and song—and with performance, as enshrined in [filmmaker William] Greaves's footage which features many spontaneous, thrillingly theatrical recitations of poems by Bontemps, Hughes, Cullen, and McKay." — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 23 Sept. 2025 Did you know? When English philosopher Thomas Hobbes penned his 1654 treatise Of Libertie and Necessitie he included the following: "all voluntary actions … are called also spontaneous, and said to be done by a man's own accord." Hobbes was writing in English, but he knew Latin perfectly well too, including the source of spontaneous; the word comes (via Late Latin spontāneus, meaning "voluntary, unconstrained") from the Latin sponte, meaning "of one's free will, voluntarily." In modern use, the word spontaneous is frequently heard in more mundane settings, where it often describes what is done or said without a lot of thought or planning.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 3, 2025 is: fidelity • \fuh-DELL-uh-tee\  • noun Fidelity is the quality or state of being faithful to a person, such as a partner or spouse, or a thing, such as one’s country. Fidelity can also refer to accuracy or exactness in details, or the degree to which an electronic device (such as a television) accurately reproduces its effect (such as sound or picture). // After almost three decades on the job, no one can doubt their fidelity to the company. // The movie’s director insisted on total fidelity to the book. See the entry > Examples: “The origins of the role [of ring bearer] actually have their roots in ancient Egypt, where a young boy would be enlisted to carry rings to a couple as a symbol of love, fidelity, and fertility.” — Shelby Wax, Vogue, 10 July 2025 Did you know? Fidelity came to English by way of Middle French in the 15th century, and can ultimately be traced back to the Latin adjective fidēlis, meaning “faithful, loyal, trustworthy.” While fidelity was originally exclusively about loyalty, it has for centuries also been used to refer to accuracy, as in “questions about the fidelity of the translation.” Nowadays fidelity is often used in reference to recording and broadcast devices, conveying the idea that a broadcast or recording is “faithful” to the live sound or picture that it reproduces.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 2, 2025 is: arbitrary • \AHR-buh-trair-ee\  • adjective Arbitrary describes something that is not planned or chosen for a particular reason, is not based on reason or evidence, or is done without concern for what is fair or right. // Because the committee wasn’t transparent about the selection process, the results of the process appeared to be wholly arbitrary. // An arbitrary number will be assigned to each participant. See the entry > Examples: “The authority of the crown, contemporaries believed, was instituted by God to rule the kingdom and its people. England’s sovereign was required to be both a warrior and a judge, to protect the realm from external attack and internal anarchy. To depose the king, therefore, was to risk everything—worldly security and immortal soul—by challenging the order of God’s creation. Such devastatingly radical action could never be justified unless kingship became tyranny: rule by arbitrary will rather than law, threatening the interests of kingdom and people instead of defending them.” — Helen Castor, The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, 2024 Did you know? Donning black robes and a powdered wig to learn about arbitrary might seem to be an arbitrary—that is, random or capricious—choice, but it would in fact jibe with the word’s etymology. Arbitrary comes from the Latin noun arbiter, which means “judge” and is the source of the English word arbiter, also meaning “judge.” In English, arbitrary first meant “depending upon choice or discretion” and was specifically used to indicate the sort of decision (as for punishment) left up to the expert determination of a judge rather than defined by law. Today, it can also be used for anything determined by or as if by chance or whim.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 1, 2025 is: ostracize • \AH-struh-syze\  • verb To ostracize someone is to exclude them from a group by the agreement of the group's members. // She was ostracized by her community after refusing to sign the petition. See the entry > Examples: "Telling stories with affection and noodging, [comedian Sarah] Silverman has always been encouraged by her family, who embraced rather than ostracized her for revealing family secrets on the way to reaping howls of laughter." — Thelma Adams, The Boston Globe, 19 May 2025 Did you know? In ancient Greece, citizens whose power or influence threatened the stability of the state could be exiled by a practice involving voters writing that person's name down on a potsherd—a fragment of earthenware or pottery. Those receiving enough votes would then be subject to temporary exile from the state. Ostracize comes from the Greek verb ostrakízein (itself from the noun óstrakon meaning "potsherd"), used in 5th century Athens for the action of banishing someone by way of such a vote. Someone ostracized today is not exiled, but instead is excluded from a group by the agreement of the group's members.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 31, 2025 is: hobgoblin • \HAHB-gahb-lin\  • noun A hobgoblin is a mischievous goblin that plays tricks in children’s stories. When used figuratively, hobgoblin refers to something that causes fear or worry. // This Halloween we were greeted at our door by werewolves, mummies, and a wide assortment of sweet-toothed hobgoblins. See the entry > Examples: “Vampires and zombies took a big bite out of the horror box office in Sinners and 28 Years Later, and with Del Toro’s Frankenstein hitting theaters next week, it would seem that a return to classic marquee monsters is one of the stories of this summer’s movie season. But there’s one old-school hobgoblin that’s lurking around the edges of this narrative, omnipresent, repeated across a number of notable new titles, but still somehow avoiding the limelight: the witch ...” — Payton McCarty-Simas, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? While a goblin is traditionally regarded in folklore as a grotesque, evil, and malicious creature, a hobgoblin tends to be more of a playful troublemaker. (The character of Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream might be regarded as one.) First appearing in English in the early 1500s, hobgoblin combined goblin (ultimately from the Greek word for “rogue,” kobalos) with hob, a word from Hobbe (a nickname for Robert) that was used both for clownish louts and rustics and in fairy tales for a mischievous sprite or elf. The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson famously applied the word’s extended sense in his essay Self-Reliance: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 30, 2025 is: truculent • \TRUCK-yuh-lunt\  • adjective Truculent describes a person who is easily annoyed and eager to argue or fight. It can also describe the mood or attitude of such a person. // The approach of multiple deadlines had put me in a truculent mood, and I could tell my colleagues were avoiding me. See the entry > Examples: “It’s the holidays, and strings of gaudy rainbow lights twinkle from gables. In cozy living rooms, the elders doze in their chairs while middle-aged siblings bicker and booze it up around the dining table. Little kids squirm in makeshift beds trying to stay awake for Santa, while truculent teenagers sneak out into the suburban night to do secret teenager things.” — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 24 May 2024 Did you know? English speakers adopted truculent from Latin in the mid-16th century, trimming truculentus, a form of the Latin adjective trux, meaning “savage,” and keeping the word’s meaning. Apparently in need of a new way to describe what is cruel and fierce, they applied truculent both to brutal things (wars, for example) and people (such as tyrants). Eventually even a plague could be truculent. In current use, though, the word has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now typically describes the sort of person who is easily annoyed and eager to argue, or language that is notably harsh.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2025 is: deliquesce • \del-ih-KWESS\  • verb Deliquesce can mean "to dissolve or melt away" or, in reference to some fungal structures (such as mushroom gills), "to become soft or liquid with age or maturity." // The mushrooms deliquesced into an inky fluid. See the entry > Examples: "He would mould his figures in full in wax, then take a hot knife and—like a metaphysical surgeon—cut away triangles, rhomboids, flaps and scraps, until only a latticework was left. These new shapeshifting figures comprised more gaps than joins: bodies in the delicate, arduous process of shedding their skins, scattering into metal petals, being eroded and deliquesced. Things were freshly able to pass through these painstakingly hard-to-cast bronzes: light, air, sight." — Robert Macfarlane, Apollo, 1 May 2025 Did you know? Deliquesce comes from the prefix de- ("from, down, away") and a form of the Latin verb liquēre, meaning "to be fluid." Things that deliquesce, it could be said, turn to mush in more ways than one. In scientific contexts, a substance that deliquesces absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. When plants and fungi deliquesce, they lose rigidity as they age. When deliquesce is used in non-scientific contexts, it is often in a figurative or humorous way to suggest the act of "melting away" under exhaustion, heat, or idleness, as in "teenagers deliquescing in 90-degree temperatures."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 28, 2025 is: menagerie • \muh-NAJ-uh-ree\  • noun Menagerie refers to a collection of animals kept especially to be shown to the public, as well as a place where such animals are kept. It can also refer figuratively to any varied mixture of things. // The aviary featured a menagerie of exotic birds. // The space is eclectically furnished with a menagerie of flea market finds. See the entry > Examples: “The creatures are usually found hanging from phones or handbags ... or clutched as a kind of pet. They come in a menagerie of more than three hundred collectible forms. They can be matched to a personal style or mood: pink fur for when you’re feeling flirty; glowing red eyes for a bit of an edge ...” — Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 20 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Back in the days of Middle French, ménagerie meant “the management of a household or farm” or “a place where animals are tended.” When English speakers adopted menagerie in the 1600s, they applied it specifically to places where wild and often also foreign animals were kept and trained for exhibition, as well as to the animals so kept. This second meaning was eventually generalized to refer to any varied mixture, especially one that includes things that are strange or foreign to one’s experience.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 27, 2025 is: acerbic • \uh-SER-bik\  • adjective Something described as acerbic is sharply or bitingly critical, sarcastic, or ironic in temper, mood, or tone. // The comedian draws crowds that appreciate his acerbic wit. See the entry > Examples: "Whether she's giving a sarcastic eye-roll, tossing off an acerbic zinger, or seducing with a come-hither stare, [actress Jennifer] Simard intimately understands the art of underplaying." — Christopher Wallenberg, The Boston Globe, 1 June 2025 Did you know? English speakers created acerbic in the 19th century by combining the adjective acerb with the suffix -ic-. Acerb had already been around for a couple centuries, but for most of that time it had been used only to describe foods with a sour taste. (Acerb is still around today, but now it's simply a less common synonym of acerbic.) Acerbic and acerb ultimately come from the Latin adjective acerbus, which can mean "harsh" or "unpleasant." Another English word that comes from acerbus is exacerbate, which means "to make more violent or severe."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 26, 2025 is: cognoscente • \kahn-yuh-SHEN-tee\  • noun Cognoscente refers to a person with expert knowledge in a subject. It is usually encountered in its plural form, cognoscenti, and preceded by the. // The audience at the club, though small, was full of writers, musicians, and other noteworthy members of the jazz cognoscenti. See the entry > Examples: "Even as [Ray] Bradbury was embraced by the New York cognoscenti—traveling to the city in the fall of '46, drawing the attention of Truman Capote, meeting Gore Vidal, dancing with Carson McCullers at a Manhattan party—Mars beckoned. Yet he would not dare tell his New York associates, for fear of being laughed out of the room." — Sam Weller, LitHub.com, 28 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Cognoscente and connoisseur—both terms for those in the know—are more than synonyms; they’re also linguistic cousins. Both terms descend from the Latin verb cognōscere, meaning "to know," and they’re not alone. You might guess that cognizance and cognition are members of the cognōscere clan. Do you also recognize a family resemblance in recognize? Can you see through the disguise of incognito? Did you have a premonition that we would mention precognition? Cognoscente itself came to English by way of Italian and has been a part of the language since the late 1700s.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 25, 2025 is: wreak • \REEK\  • verb Wreak means “to cause something very harmful or damaging.” It is often used with on or upon. // The virus wreaked havoc on my laptop. See the entry > Examples: “Ours is a geography of cataclysm: Santa Anas wreak their psychic wrath; the odor of disaster seeps from the street like that sulfurous egg smell of the La Brea Tar Pits.” — John Lopez, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Sept. 2025 Did you know? In its early days, wreak was synonymous with avenge, a meaning exemplified when Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus proclaims “We will solicit heaven, and move the gods / To send down Justice for to wreak our wrongs.” This sense is now archaic, but the association hasn't been lost: although wreak is today most often paired with havoc, it is also still sometimes paired with words like vengeance and destruction. We humbly suggest you avoid wreaking any of that, however, no matter how badly you may crave your just deserts.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 24, 2025 is: rancid • \RAN-sid\  • adjective Rancid usually describes something edible that has a strong and unpleasant smell or taste because it is no longer fresh. In figurative use, rancid describes things that are very distasteful or offensive. // The corpse flower, which is the largest known individual flower of any plant species, stays open five to seven days and emits a rancid odor. See the entry > Examples: "A great oil should smell green, fresh, alive. Give it a sniff before pouring: Even once-vibrant olive oils can start to lose their aroma after a while. If the oil smells bland, it's best for sautéing, roasting or baking rather than finishing. If it smells rancid (or waxy), toss it." — Andy Baraghani, The New York Times, 27 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Rancid and putrid and fetid—oh my! All three words are used to describe unpleasant smells and tastes, and each traces its roots to a "stinky" Latin word: rancid can be traced back to rancēre; the root of putrid shares an ancestor with putēre; and fetid comes from foetēre—all verbs meaning "to stink." Not long after entering the language in the early 17th century, rancid also developed a second, figurative sense which is used for non-gustatory and non-olfactory offenses, as in "rancid hypocrisy."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 23, 2025 is: litany • \LIT-uh-nee\  • noun Litany usually refers to a long list of complaints, problems, etc. It can also refer to a sizable series or set, a lengthy recitation, a repetitive chant, or a particular kind of call-and-response prayer. // Among the television critic’s litany of complaints about the new series is the anachronistic costume design. See the entry > Examples: “Out spilled the litany of all the names of all the things you thought I still feared: A big, bad wolf, a two-headed snake, a balding hyena, a beast dropped from the sky, an earthquake, a devil with red bells around its neck. Your words were steady, steeped in the old stories, but my eyes flicked to the window, unafraid. I was too old for easy monsters.” — Raaza Jamshed, What Kept You?: Fiction, 2025 Did you know? How do we love the word litany? Let us count the ways. We love its original 13th century meaning, still in use today, referring to a call-and-response prayer in which a series of lines are spoken alternately by a leader and a congregation. We love how litany has developed in the intervening centuries three figurative senses, and we love each of these as well: first, a sense meaning “repetitive chant”; next, the “lengthy recitation” sense owing to the repetitious—and sometimes interminable—nature of the original litany; and finally, an even broader sense referring to any sizeable series or set. Though litanies of this third sort tend to be unpleasant, we choose today to think of the loveliness found in the idea of “a litany of sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 22, 2025 is: frolic • \FRAH-lik\  • verb To frolic is to play and move about happily. // We watched the seals as they frolicked in the harbor. See the entry > Examples: “Harper’s consciousness ends up in the body of her mom, Anna. Lily bodyswaps with her soon-to-be grandma Tess. And vice versa. Meaning Lohan and Curtis are playing teens again. While their younger co-stars mug sternly, make jokes about regaining a metabolism ‘the speed of light,’ and frolic on electric scooters, Freaky Friday’s dynamic duo fling themselves into silly sequences ...” — Kristy Puchko, Mashable, 5 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Frolic is a word rooted in pleasure. Its most common function today is as a verb meaning “to play and move about happily,” as in “children frolicking in the waves,” but it joined the language in the 16th century as an adjective carrying the meaning of its Dutch source vroolijk: “full of fun; merry.” Shakespeare’s Puck used it this way in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, saying “And we fairies … following darkness like a dream, now are frolic.” Verb use quickly followed, and by the early 17th century the word was also being used as a noun, as in “an evening of fun and frolic.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 21, 2025 is: sedentary • \SED-un-tair-ee\  • adjective Something described as sedentary does or involves a lot of sitting. Sedentary can also mean "not physically active" (as in "a sedentary lifestyle") or "not migratory" (as in "sedentary birds" or "a sedentary civilization"). // Editing the dictionary is a sedentary job. See the entry > Examples: "From open offices to home workstations, employees across industries invested in sit-stand setups with the hope of counteracting sedentary lifestyles." — Michelle Stansbury, Forbes, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Sedentary comes from the Latin verb sedēre, meaning "to sit." Other descendants of sedēre include dissident, insidious, preside, reside, and subsidy. Sedēre is also the base of the rare sedens, a noun that refers to a person who remains a resident of the place or region of their birth.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 20, 2025 is: etymology • \eh-tuh-MAH-luh-jee\  • noun An etymology is an explanation of a word’s history—that is, where the word came from and how it developed. // As a word nerd, I’m always eager to learn a word’s etymology and trace it back to its earliest known origins. See the entry > Examples: “A recent Vogue bride, Nicole Amarise, changed her name—as did her husband. ‘Together we opted to create a new one for our new life together,’ she says. ‘We gave ChatGPT information about the etymology of our old surnames, and guided it to generate surname options for us that could relate to our heritages and cultures.’” — Shelby Wax, Vogue, 16 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The etymology of etymology itself is relatively straightforward, so we won’t bug you with a lengthy explanation. Etymology ultimately comes from the Greek word etymon, meaning “literal meaning of a word according to its origin.” Etymon in turn comes from etymos, which means “true.” Be careful not to confuse etymology with the similar sounding entomology. Entomon means “insect” in Greek, and entomology is a branch of zoology that deals with insects.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 19, 2025 is: veritable • \VAIR-uh-tuh-bul\  • adjective Veritable is a formal adjective that means “being in fact the thing named and not false, unreal, or imaginary.” It is often used to stress the aptness of a metaphorical description. // The island is a veritable paradise. // The sale attracted a veritable mob of people. See the entry > Examples: “The Roma are often described as an ethnic minority, but many Romani communities view ‘Roma’ as a broad racial identity, stretching all the way back to our Indian ancestry. Indeed, to look at the Roma as one ethnicity is to disregard the veritable mosaic of Romani subgroups. There’s a thread that holds us all together, which to me feels like a string of fairy lights scattered across the world. Each of these lights shines with its own unique beauty.” — Madeline Potter, The Roma: A Traveling History, 2025 Did you know? Veritable, like its close relative verity (“truth”), came to English through Anglo-French from Latin, ultimately the adjective vērus, meaning “true,” which also gave English verify, aver, and verdict. Veritable is often used as a synonym of genuine or authentic (“a veritable masterpiece”), but it is also frequently used to stress the aptness of a metaphor, often with a humorous tone (“a veritable swarm of lawyers”). In the past, language commentators objected to the latter use, but today it doesn’t draw much criticism.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 18, 2025 is: muse • \MYOOZ\  • verb When muse is used to mean "to think about something carefully or thoroughly," it is usually followed by about, on, over, or upon. The word can also mean "to become absorbed in thought," or "to think or say something in a thoughtful way." // He mused on the possibility of pursuing a master's degree. // "I could sell the house," she mused aloud, "but then where would I go?" See the entry > Examples: "On a crisp winter's day, 100-year-old Peg Logan sits in her favorite wingback chair in the living room of her Harpswell home. She flips through the pages of an oversized gardening book and muses about the vegetables she'll plant in the spring." — Connie Sage Conner, The Harpswell (Maine) Anchor, 27 Feb. 2025 Did you know? Muse on this: the word muse comes from the Anglo-French verb muser, meaning "to gape, to idle, to muse." The image evoked is one of a thinker so absorbed in thought as to be unconsciously open-mouthed. Those who muse on their pets' musings might like to know that muser is ultimately from the Medieval Latin noun musus, meaning "mouth of an animal"—also source of the word muzzle. The noun muse, which in lowercase refers to a source of inspiration and when capitalized to one of the sister goddesses of Greek mythology, has no etymological link: that word comes from the Greek Mousa. The ultimate Greek origin of the word museum translates as "of the Muses."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 17, 2025 is: kibosh • \KYE-bosh\  • noun Kibosh refers to something that serves as a check or stop. It is usually used in the phrase “put the kibosh on” to mean “to stop or end (something)” or “to prevent (something) from happening or continuing.” // I downloaded an app to help me put the kibosh on my high screen time. See the entry > Examples: “… Maybe, suggests [Graham] Dugoni and other advocates, instead of putting the kibosh on devices entirely, we need to treat modern society like a teenager on a rebellious streak. Rather than saying no, we need to show them support, offer a gentle hand, maybe even make them think it’s their idea. In a way, it’s time for some gentle parenting.” — Chase DiBenedetto, Mashable, 3 June 2025 Did you know? Evidence of kibosh dates the word to only a few years before Charles Dickens used it in an 1836 sketch, but despite kibosh being relatively young its source is elusive. Claims were once made that it was Yiddish, despite the absence of a plausible Yiddish source. Another hypothesis pointed to the Irish term caidhp bhais, literally, “coif (or cap) of death,” explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed. But evidence for any metaphorical use of this phrase in Irish is lacking, and kibosh is not recorded in English as spoken in Ireland until decades after Dickens’s use. More recent source theories include a heraldic term for an animal’s head when born with only its face fully showing, and an Arabic word meaning “whip, lash,” but as the note at our etymology explains, no theory has sufficient evidence to back it.