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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 15, 2025 is:
livid • \LIV-id\ • adjective
Livid means "very angry, enraged, or furious." It may also describe things having a dark purplish or reddish color.
// The teen's parents were livid when they discovered she had lied about her whereabouts.
// He had a livid bruise on his right arm.
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Examples:
"Activists and vulnerable nations were understandably livid at the failure to garner stronger commitments on the reduction of fossil fuel use, noting that ... fossil fuels are barely referenced despite being the primary driver of global emissions." — David Carlin, Forbes, 26 Nov. 2024
Did you know?
Livid has a colorful history. The Latin adjective livēre, "to be blue," gave rise to Latin lividus, meaning "discolored by bruising." French adopted the word along with its meaning as livide, which English borrowed in the 15th century as livid. For a few centuries the English word described bruised flesh as well as a shade of dark gray and other colors having a dark grayish tone. By the 18th century people were livid, first by being pale with extreme emotion ("a pale, lean, livid face" —Henry James), and then by being reddish with the same ("His face glared with a livid red." —James Francis Barrett). By the late 19th century a livid person could also be furiously angry, which is the word's typical application today.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 14, 2025 is:
billet-doux • \bill-ee-DOO\ • noun
A billet-doux is a love letter. The word's plural is billets-doux.
// Since their relationship was long-distance, the couple thought it would be cute to send each other billets-doux on their anniversary.
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Examples:
"... [Jon] Batiste creates splendid music—those of us with kids likely experienced it lately on his soundtrack to the Pixar hit 'Soul.' 'Batiste: Movement 11',' the composition of his that’s nominated for a Grammy in a classical category, is nearly two minutes of intense, pensive joy tinctured with darkness, of the kind that people send to each other as a billet-doux …" — John McWhorter, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2022
Did you know?
When love is in the air, it's time to put it down on paper. If you ever find yourself having trouble thinking of Valentine's Day or anniversary gift ideas, how about sending your sweetie pie a billet-doux that reminds them of your perfect meet-cute, or invites them to see the latest rom-com? Wouldn’t that be sweet? In French, billet doux means "sweet letter." English writers first fell in love with the word during the 17th century and have been committed to using it as a romantic alternative to "love letter" ever since.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 13, 2025 is:
gallant • \GAL-unt\ • adjective
Someone or something described as gallant is very courageous and brave. Gallant is also sometimes used to mean “large and impressive” (as in “a gallant ship”), or to describe someone who has or shows politeness and respect for women.
// Though they failed to reach the summit, the mountaineering team made a gallant attempt.
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Examples:
“He turned to go, and was promptly whacked across the backside by Miss Chokfi. ‘Ouch?’ he said. ‘What was that for?’ She was standing up very straight and gallant, though it still left her a foot and a half shorter than him, with the office stapler ready by her hand. ‘That was for not stopping him,’ she said. ‘Was there anything else you need?’ ‘Not a thing,’ said Barrow, and tipped his hat to her.” — Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz: A Novel, 2024
Did you know?
If you’re familiar with the long-running comic strip “Goofus and Gallant,” created by Garry Cleveland Myers and published in the monthly children’s magazine Highlights, you likely have a particularly good sense of the meaning of the adjective gallant. In the comic, the character of Goofus demonstrates to young readers all sorts of bad habits and behaviors, while Gallant provides examples of proper conduct and comportment when in circumstances similar to those of his ill-mannered counterpart. The characters’ names were, of course, chosen with purpose. We record several different senses of gallant and all are compliments. Someone described as gallant may be smartly dressed, courteous and chivalrous, or valiant and brave. Goofus, bless his heart, is none of these things (while we do not define the adjective goofus, the Oxford English Dictionary does: “stupid, foolish”). Perhaps ironically, gallant comes from the Middle French verb galer, meaning “to squander in pleasures”; such squandering is something Goofus is likely to do, and Gallant never would.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 12, 2025 is:
hagiography • \hag-ee-AH-gruh-fee\ • noun
Hagiography is biography that idealizes or idolizes a person and their life.
// The book gives a good idea of his virtues without resorting to hagiography.
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Examples:
"The sisters’ show can sometimes feel like hagiography; there is little discussion of Basquiat’s demons or the aspects of his home life that may have been difficult." — Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2022
Did you know?
The second part of hagiography is familiar: the combining form -graphy, which comes from the Greek verb graphein, meaning "to write," is found in biography and calligraphy (among many others) too. Hagio-, however, is more unusual; it comes from a Greek word that meant "holy, sacred" in Ancient Greek and more recently "saintly," by way of the term Hagiographa, another name for the Ketuvim, the third part of the Jewish Scriptures. English's hagiography can refer to biography of actual saints, but it is more typically applied to biography that treats ordinary human subjects as if they were saints.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 11, 2025 is:
ruminate • \ROO-muh-nayt\ • verb
To ruminate is to think carefully and deeply about something.
// We ruminated over the implications of our decision.
See the entry >
Examples:
“Most of the songs bear the name of a store you’d see in every mall in the United States before they became sad ghost towns, air conditioning and smooth jazz blasting in the emptied, echoing caverns of capitalism. ... The trio uses nostalgia as a tool of examination, ruminating on the not-too-distant past in order to process the funny and sometimes heartbreaking process of getting older together.” — Dash Lewis, Pitchfork, 8 July 2024
Did you know?
When you ruminate, you chew something over, either literally or figuratively. Literal rumination may seem a little gross to humans, but to cows, chewing your cud (partially digested food brought up from the stomach for another chew) is just a natural part of life. Figurative ruminating is much more palatable to humans; that kind of deep, meditative thought is often deemed quite a worthy activity. The verb ruminate has described metaphorical chewing over since the early 1500s and actual chewing since later that same century. Our English word comes from and shares the meanings of the Latin verb ruminari (“to chew the cud” or “muse upon”), which in turn comes from rumen, the Latin name for the first stomach compartment of ruminant animals (that is, creatures like cows that chew their cud).
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 10, 2025 is:
vestige • \VESS-tij\ • noun
A vestige is a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something lost or vanished.
// The ruins here are the last vestiges of the Roman occupation in this part of Britain.
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Examples:
"Filled with vestiges of yesteryear, the Butte [Montana] historic district is one of the largest in the country." — Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Janie Osborne, The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2024
Did you know?
Though English is categorized as a Germanic language, there’s no denying the enormousness of Latin’s footprint on its lexicon. Among English’s plethora of Latin derivatives is vestige, a word that traces back to the Latin noun vestigium, meaning "footstep, footprint, or track." Like its forebear, vestige refers to a perceptible sign made by something that has passed, or to a tangible reminder, such as a fragment or remnant, of what is past and gone. Vestige also happens to be one of only a few vestiges of vestigium itself, along with the adjective vestigial ("remaining as the last part of something that existed before") and the familiar verb investigate.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 9, 2025 is:
ecstatic • \ek-STAT-ik\ • adjective
Someone described as ecstatic is very happy or excited; the person feels or shows ecstasy—that is, rapturous delight.
// Greta and Sam were ecstatic when their daughter called to tell them that they were soon going to be grandparents.
See the entry >
Examples:
“... through reading, through reporting, I begin to comprehend a truth. That moment of comprehension is ecstatic. Writing and rewriting is the attempt to communicate not just a truth but the ecstasy of a truth. It is not enough for me to convince the reader of my argument; I want them to feel that same private joy that I feel alone.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message, 2024
Did you know?
If you feel like “a hot air balloon that could go to space” or, perhaps, “like a room without a roof,” you might—with all due respect to Pharrell Williams—be not just happy but ecstatic. In other words: euphoric, over the moon, positively brimming with joy or excitement. Ecstatic has been used in English since the late 1500s, arriving (via Medieval Latin) from the Greek adjective ekstatikós meaning, among other things “out of one’s senses.” Ekstatikós, in turn, was formed in part from eksta-, the stem of such verbs as existánai, “to displace or confound,” and exístasthai “to be astonished or lose consciousness.” That seems an appropriate history for a word that can describe someone who is nearly out of their mind with intense emotion. Eksta-, it should be noted, also contributed to the Greek noun ékstasis, meaning “astonishment” or “trance,” which led to ecstasy (the English word, of course, not the universal feeling).
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 8, 2025 is:
finesse • \fuh-NESS\ • verb
To finesse something is to bring it about, direct it, or manage it by skillful maneuvering.
// We managed to finesse a favorable deal on some Beatles LPs at the flea market through subtle bargaining.
See the entry >
Examples:
“Many times, the teams that can lead a company to a successful public listing are not the ones best equipped to finesse the delicate relationship with equity research analysts.” — Ilona Limonta-Volkova, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2024
Did you know?
The noun finesse originally referred to the “fineness” or delicacy of something’s texture, structure, or workmanship. It later came to be applied to the delicacy of someone’s skill in handling tricky situations before gaining a sense specific to taking tricks in cards. In games such as bridge or whist, finesse refers to a particular stratagem that involves the clever withholding of a winning card. Although the verb finesse is now most often used in situations where a person handles something in a skillful or clever way, its oldest sense emerged at the gaming tables—to finesse in bridge or whist is simply to make a finesse.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 7, 2025 is:
malapropism • \MAL-uh-prah-piz-um\ • noun
A malapropism is an amusing error that occurs when a person mistakenly uses a word that sounds like another word but that has a very different meaning.
// "It's lovely to see all of you on this suspicious occasion," our host said. A flurry of snickers were heard in reply; the malapropism (she had of course meant to call it an "auspicious" occasion) was characteristic.
See the entry >
Examples:
"Words were precious playthings to Roald Dahl. The Welsh-born writer was a master toymaker with his wildly imaginative prose, embracing spoonerisms and malapropisms to invent scrumdiddlyumptious words that tickled the ear and fizzled on the tongue when spoken aloud." — i-news, 21 Dec. 2024
Did you know?
Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, was known for her verbal blunders. "He is the very pine-apple of politeness," she exclaimed, complimenting a courteous young man. Thinking of the geography of contiguous countries, she spoke of the "geometry" of "contagious countries," and she hoped that her daughter might "reprehend" the true meaning of what she was saying. She regretted that her "affluence" over her niece was small. The word malapropism comes from this blundering character's name, which Sheridan took from the French term mal à propos, meaning "inappropriate."
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 6, 2025 is:
ad-lib • \AD-LIB\ • verb
To ad-lib something, such as a performance or part of a performance, is to improvise it—that is, to make up words or music instead of saying, singing, or playing something that has been planned.
// The actor forgot his lines, so he ad-libbed.
See the entry >
Examples:
“My real appreciation for [Céline] Dion grew in 2018, when I saw her perform in Vegas. I had agreed to attend with some friends, expecting a silly night of singing along to her hits like I was a kid again. It was the best live performance I had ever seen. Her singing was stunning, of course. She ad-libbed frequently, taking pleasure in showing off her range, and her voice was warm and supple.” — Caitlin Dickerson, The Atlantic, 18 July 2024
Did you know?
Let’s play a word game—just fill in a word of your choosing within the brackets in the following sentence, according to the category in italics: The word ad-lib comes from [language] and was first [past-tense verb] as a [part of speech] in the [ordinal number] century. If you jotted down “Latin,” “used,” “adverb,” and “eighteenth” you would be correct; ad-lib comes from Latin and was first used as an adverb in the eighteenth century. However, as the word game allows players to fill in whatever words they choose in accordance with their wishes, there were no wrong answers, a fact which also points toward the meaning of the verb ad-lib, which is a shortening of the Latin phrase ad libitum, meaning “in accordance with one’s wishes.” To ad-lib is to improvise, to go off-script, to say (or sing, or play on an instrument) whatever comes into your head in lieu of, or in spite of, a script or score. While ad-libbing may seem like a risky venture, some of the most famous lines in movie history were ad-libbed, from “Here’s looking at you, kid” to “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Isn’t that [adjective]?
