Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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  1. 16H AGO

    short shrift

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 31, 2026 is: short shrift • \SHORT-SHRIFT\  • noun Short shrift means “little or no attention or thought” or “quick work.” In religious use it refers to barely adequate time for confession before execution. // Certain neighborhoods have received short shrift from the city government. See the entry > Examples: “[Charlie] Caplinger echoed the concerns of many speakers at the meeting, with charter captains saying the recreational fishing industry’s economic contributions were being given short shrift.” — Mike Smith, NOLA.com (New Orleans, Louisiana), 6 Nov. 2025 Did you know? We’ve got a confession to make, but we’ll keep it brief: while it’s technically possible to make “long shrift” of something, you’re unlikely to find long shrift in our dictionary anytime soon. Short shrift, on the other hand, has been keeping it real—real terse, that is—for centuries. The earliest known use of the phrase comes from Shakespeare’s play Richard III, in which Lord Hastings, who has been condemned by King Richard to be beheaded, is told by Sir Richard Ratcliffe to “Make a short shrift” as the king “longs to see your head.” Although now archaic, the noun shrift was understood in Shakespeare’s time to refer to the confession or absolution of sins, so “make a short shrift” meant, quite literally, “keep your confession short.” However, since at least the 19th century the phrase has been used figuratively to refer to a small or inadequate amount of time or attention given to something.

    2 min

  2. 1D AGO

    preeminent

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 30, 2026 is: preeminent • \pree-EM-uh-nunt\  • adjective Preeminent is a formal word used to describe someone or something more important, skillful, or successful than their counterparts or peers. It is used synonymously with outstanding and supreme. // She's the preeminent chef in a city renowned for its cuisine. See the entry > Examples: "In this warmly engaging intellectual biography, [author Paul R.] Viotti traces the life and ideas of Kenneth Waltz, a preeminent figure in post–World War II international relations scholarship." — G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025 Did you know? What is noteworthy about the following sentence? "Mount Kilimanjaro is a prominent eminence on the Tanzanian landscape." You very likely recognized two words that are closely related to preeminent: prominent and eminence. All three words are rooted in the Latin verb stem -minēre, which is taken to mean "to stand out" though there is no record of its use without a prefix. Mount also deserves an honorable mention: it comes from the Latin mont- or mons, meaning "mountain," which is understood to share a common ancestor with -minēre. Mount leads us in turn to paramount, a word closely related in meaning to preeminent.

    2 min

  3. 2D AGO

    reciprocate

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 29, 2026 is: reciprocate • \rih-SIP-ruh-kayt\  • verb To reciprocate is to do something for or to someone who has done something similar for or to you. Reciprocate can also mean “to have (a feeling) for someone who has the same feeling for you.” // It was kind of my friend to give me a ride to the airport, and on the flight I was thinking of how to reciprocate the favor. See the entry > Examples: “She entered the post office and greeted Tommaso, who reciprocated with a smile, then Carmine, who stroked his beard and shot her the usual skeptical glance.” — Francesca Giannone, The Letter Carrier (translated by Elettra Pauletto), 2025 Did you know? “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” “do unto others as you would have them do to you,” “share and share alike”: such is the essence of the verb reciprocate, which implies a mutual or equivalent exchange or a paying back of what one has received. Reciprocate traces back to the Latin verb reciprocare (“to move back and forth”), which in turn comes from the adjective reciprocus, meaning “returning the same way” or “alternating.” Indeed, one of the meanings of reciprocate is “to move forward and backward alternately,” as in “a reciprocating saw.” Most often, however, reciprocate is used for the action of returning something in kind or degree, whether that be a gift, favor, or feeling.

    2 min

  4. 3D AGO

    bombast

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 28, 2026 is: bombast • \BAHM-bast\  • noun Bombast is a formal word that refers to speech or writing that is meant to sound important or impressive but that is not sincere or meaningful. // You need less bombast and more substance in this speech. See the entry > Examples: “This is bombast that has not been thought through from a policy perspective. I know that many in the space community find this to be exciting and want to believe the hype behind such an announcement. Mars is exciting. However ... I think we have to ask ourselves whether getting to Mars is worth the moral costs in addition to the economic costs and potential risks to human lives.” — P. J. Blount, quoted in Newsweek, 28 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Bombast settled softly into English in the mid-late 16th century as a textile term used to refer to cotton or other soft fibrous material used as padding or stuffing (its ultimate source is likely the Middle Persian noun pambak, meaning “cotton”), but within a decade it had extended from literal stuffing to figurative stuffing, referring to speech or writing that is padded with pretentious verbiage. The adjective bombastic, which followed bombast a century later, has been a favorite choice to describe blowhards, boasters, and cockalorums ever since.

    2 min

  5. 4D AGO

    fiduciary

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 27, 2026 is: fiduciary • \fuh-DOO-shee-air-ee\  • adjective Fiduciary is a formal word describing something relating to or involving trust, such as the trust between a customer and a professional. // The bank's fiduciary obligations are clearly stated in the contract. See the entry > Examples: "Banks and brokerage firms hold a fiduciary responsibility to protect their customers, including from scams." — Carter Pape, American Banker, 11 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Fiduciary relationships are often of the financial variety, but the word fiduciary does not, in and of itself, suggest pecuniary ("money-related") matters. Rather, fiduciary applies to any situation in which one person justifiably places confidence and trust in someone else, and seeks that person's help or advice in some matter. The attorney-client relationship is a fiduciary one, for example, because the client trusts the attorney to act in the best interest of the client at all times. Fiduciary can also be used as a noun referring to the person who acts in a fiduciary capacity, and fiduciarily or fiducially can be called upon if you are in need of an adverb. The words are all faithful to their origin: Latin fīdere, which means "to trust."

    2 min

  6. 5D AGO

    oaf

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 26, 2026 is: oaf • \OHF\  • noun Oaf is used to refer to someone as big, clumsy, and slow-witted. // The main character starts the movie as a tactless, bumbling oaf who is constantly causing offense to everyone around them, but eventually learns a valuable lesson about kindness and courtesy. See the entry > Examples: “Let me give you a rose. Well, just an imaginary rose. ‘What?’ ‘What’s the occasion?’ ‘What for?’ Because I want to participate in an act of kindness. ... It’s impossible, even for a blustering, clumsy oaf like me, to ignore the positive effects of a rose in hand.” — Anthony Campbell, The Advertiser-Gleam (Guntersville, Alabama), 24 Oct. 2025 Did you know? In long-ago England, it was believed that elves sometimes secretly exchanged their babies for human babies—a belief that served as an explanation when parents found themselves with a baby that failed to meet expectations or desires: these parents believed that their real baby had been stolen by elves and that a changeling had been left in its place. The label for such a child was auf, or alfe, (meaning “an elf’s or a goblin’s child”), which was later altered to form our present-day oaf. Auf is likely from the Middle English alven or elven, meaning “elf” or “fairy.” Today, the word oaf is no longer associated with babies and is instead applied to anyone who appears especially unintelligent or graceless.

    2 min

  7. 6D AGO

    resplendent

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 25, 2026 is: resplendent • \rih-SPLEN-dunt\  • adjective Resplendent is a literary word used to describe someone or something as very bright and attractive. // She looked resplendent in her green evening gown. See the entry > Examples: “Her box braids were tied in a top bun that poked out of her green and gold headscarf... . Pretty as the braids were, he quietly missed the natural hair they protected. When unbound, her hair was a resplendent halo of vitality. But he knew the halo required a complex, labor-intensive morning and night routine for which she had lost patience.” — Karim Dimechkie, The Uproar: A Novel, 2025 Did you know? Resplendent shares a root with splendid (meaning, among other things, “shining” or “brilliant”), splendent (“shining” or “glossy”), and splendor (“brightness” or “luster”). Each of these glowing terms gets its shine from the Latin verb splendēre (“to shine”). In the case of resplendent, the prefix re- added to splendēre formed the Latin resplendēre, meaning “to shine back.” Splendent, splendor, and resplendent were first used in English during the 15th century, but splendid didn’t light up our language until almost 200 years later; its earliest known use dates from the early 1600s.

    2 min

  8. JAN 24

    garner

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 24, 2026 is: garner • \GAHR-ner\  • verb Garner means "to acquire by effort; earn" or "to accumulate or collect." // The new research findings have garnered the attention of medical experts. // The group has garnered support from community organizations. See the entry > Examples: "The novel was already a favourite among literary critics but it's sure to garner wider, more mainstream appeal following the Booker Prize win." — Daisy Lester, The Independent (United Kingdom), 11 Nov. 2025 Did you know? What do you call a building in which grain is stored? These days, English speakers are most likely to call it a granary, but there was a time when garner was also a good candidate. That noun made its way into the language in the 12th century (ultimately from Latin granum, "grain"); the verb garner followed three centuries later with a closely related meaning: "to gather into a granary." Today the verb has largely abandoned its agrarian roots—it usually means "to earn" or "to accumulate." Meanwhile the noun garner is rare in contemporary use. It's found mostly in older literary contexts, such as these lines from Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor: "Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, / The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn."

    2 min

  9. JAN 23

    astrolabe

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 23, 2026 is: astrolabe • \A-struh-layb\  • noun An astrolabe is a compact instrument used to observe and calculate the position of celestial bodies before the invention of the sextant. // The new astronomy exhibit featured various gadgets and instruments, including an extensive collection of astrolabes. See the entry > Examples: “‘Renaissance Treasures’ includes two contemporary navigational devices, a planispheric astrolabe from Persia and a pocket compass (think of them as beta-version GPS), as well as two Mercator globes. One dates from 1541 and shows the surface of the Earth. The other dates from 1551 and shows the heavens ...” — Mark Feeney, The Boston Globe, 9 May 2025 Did you know? “Thyn Astrolabie hath a ring to putten on the thombe of thi right hond in taking the height of thinges.” Thus begins a description of an astrolabe in A Treatise on the Astrolabe, a medieval user’s guide penned by an amateur astronomer by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer is best known for his Middle English poetic masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, but when his nose wasn’t buried in his writing, Chaucer was stargazing, and some of his passion for the heavens rubbed off on his son Lewis, who had displayed a special “abilite to lerne sciences touching nombres and proporciouns.” Chaucer dedicated his treatise to the 10-year-old boy, setting his instructions not in the usual Latin, but in “naked wordes in Englissh” so that little Lewis could understand. When he got older, Lewis may have learned that the word astrolabe traces to the Late Greek name for the instrument, astrolábion.

    2 min

  10. JAN 22

    disheveled

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 22, 2026 is: disheveled • \dih-SHEV-uld\  • adjective A disheveled person or thing is not neat or tidy. // His wrinkled suit gave him a disheveled appearance. See the entry > Examples: “My mother is waking up. ... She dresses quickly. Her oblong, Scots-Irish face may be too idiosyncratic for the screen anyway, the hollow cheekbones and sharp eyes, the straw-blond hair worn in a low-slung and slightly disheveled beehive.” — Matthew Specktor, The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood, 2025 Did you know? These days, the adjective disheveled is used to describe almost anything or anyone marked by disorder or disarray. Rumpled clothes, for example, often contribute to a disheveled appearance, as in Colson Whitehead’s novel Crook Manifesto, when the comedian Roscoe Pope walks onstage “disheveled, in wrinkled green corduroy pants.” Apartments, desks, bedsheets, you name it—all can be disheveled when not at their neatest and tidiest. Hair, however, is the most common noun to which disheveled is applied (along with hairdo terms like bun and beard), a fact that makes etymological sense. Disheveled comes from the Middle English adjective discheveled, meaning “bareheaded” or “with disordered hair.” That word is a partial translation of the Anglo-French word deschevelé, a combination of the prefix des- (“dis-“) and chevoil, meaning “hair.”

    2 min
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