Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 8, 2025 is: bravado • \bruh-VAH-doh\  • noun Bravado refers to confident or brave talk or behavior that is intended to impress other people. // She tells the stories of her youthful exploits with enough bravado to invite suspicion that they're embellished a bit. // The crew of climbers scaled the mountain with youthful bravado. See the entry > Examples: "One problem that exists in the whitewater community overall is that people don't always understand the basic elements associated with water and their ignorance and bravado often lead to an incident where someone gets injured or killed." — Tracy Hines, The Durango (Colorado) Herald, 19 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Displays of bravado may be show-offish, daring, reckless, and inconsistent with good sense—take, for example, the spectacular feats of stuntpeople—but when successful, they are still likely to be met with shouts of "bravo!" Celebrities, political leaders, corporate giants, and schoolyard bullies, however, may show a different flavor of bravado: one that suggests an overbearing boldness that comes from arrogance or from being in a position of power. The word bravado originally comes from the Italian adjective bravo, meaning "wild" or "courageous," which English can also thank for the more common brave.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 7, 2025 is: enigmatic • \en-ig-MAT-ik\  • adjective Something or someone described as enigmatic is mysterious and difficult to understand. // The band’s lead singer has always been an enigmatic figure, refusing to use social media or even sit for interviews. See the entry > Examples: “For thirty years, Perlefter’s carpet hung peacefully on the wall in the museum, delighting visitors with its beauty, its unusual palette, enigmatic motifs and its echoes of four empires.” — Dorothy Armstrong, Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets, 2025 Did you know? The noun enigma can refer to a puzzle, a riddle, a question mark. It’s no mystery then, that the adjective enigmatic describes what is hard to solve or figure out. An enigmatic person, for example, may be someone with a bit of je ne sais quoi. What’s behind a stranger’s enigmatic smile? Your guess is as good as ours. Does the vocabulary in the short story you’re reading render it a tad enigmatic? Better grab a dictionary! Both enigma and enigmatic come from the Greek verb ainissesthai, meaning “to speak in riddles.”

Dive into the fascinating world of sensibility, a term that captures our emotional responses and cultural perspectives. Discover how it influences everything from public speaking to artistic expression. Hear about Lady Gaga's unique approach to absurdist sensibilities that enrich her work. Explore the spectrum of meanings, from basic sensations to the nuances of sentimentality. Plus, see how Jane Austen expertly navigated this theme in her timeless novels, showcasing its complexity in her characters' lives.

Explore the fascinating world of the word 'inoculate'! Discover its medical roots, from treating diseases to extending into agriculture with truffle farming. Learn how Edward Jenner's cowpox innovation revolutionized vaccination. Delve into its intriguing etymology, connecting 'inoculate' to 'ocular.' This linguistic journey reveals how ideas and immunities spread, much like spores in a forest. Perfect for word lovers and trivia buffs alike!

Explore the intriguing word 'frowsy,' which signifies a messy or unkempt appearance. Discover its fascinating origins, tracing back to the 17th century when it described musty odors. Even Benjamin Franklin had a hand in its history! Charles Dickens loved using it to paint vivid pictures of disheveled scenes and characters. This word's journey from smells to styles highlights the rich evolution of language.

Discover the fascinating world of alchemy, a mysterious process that transforms the mundane into the extraordinary. Explore how Super Mario Bros. revolutionized gaming with its magical touch. Delve into the historical origins of alchemy, practiced globally from ancient Egypt to Greece and beyond. Learn about its revival in the 12th century through Arabic translations, paving the way for modern chemistry and pharmacology. Lastly, uncover the etymology of this enchanting word as it found its place in the English language.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 2, 2025 is: cajole • \kuh-JOHL\  • verb To cajole someone is to use flattery or gentle urging to persuade them to do something or to give you something. Cajole can also mean “to deceive with soothing words or false promises.” It is often used with the word into. // She cajoled her partner into going to the party with her. // They hoped to cajole him into cooperating with local officials. See the entry > Examples: “... I cajoled my father into letting me use the company season tickets which were supposed to be used for clients, but sometimes wound up in my hands.” — Sal Maiorana, The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, 22 Oct. 2025 Did you know? However hard we try, we can’t cajole the full history of cajole from the cages of obscurity. We know that it comes from the French verb cajoler, meaning “to give much attention to; to make a fuss over; to flatter or persuade with flattery,” and goes back to the Middle French cajoller, meaning “to flatter out of self-interest.” But the next chapter of the word’s history may, or may not, be for the birds: it’s possible that cajoller relates to the Middle French verb cageoller, used for the action of a jay or other bird singing. Cageoller, in turn, traces back to gaiole, a word meaning “birdcage” in a dialect of Picardy.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 1, 2025 is: pseudonym • \SOO-duh-nim\  • noun A pseudonym is a name that someone (such as a writer) uses instead of their real name. // bell hooks is the pseudonym of the American writer Gloria Jean Watkins. See the entry > Examples: “Edgar Wright, the filmmaker and genre specialist who has given the world modern gems like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Baby Driver, estimates he was around 13 years old when he read ‘the Bachman Books,’ a collection of four novels that Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman during the early years of his career.” — Don Kaye, Den of Geek, 9 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Pseudonym has its origins in the Greek adjective pseudōnymos, which means “bearing a false name.” French speakers adopted the Greek word as the noun pseudonyme, and English speakers later modified the French word into pseudonym. Many celebrated authors have used pseudonyms. Samuel Clemens wrote under the pseudonym “Mark Twain,” Charles Lutwidge Dodgson assumed the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” and Mary Ann Evans used “George Eliot” as her pseudonym.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 30, 2025 is: iconoclast • \eye-KAH-nuh-klast\  • noun Iconoclast originally referred to someone who destroys religious images or who opposes their veneration. It is now used to refer broadly to anyone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted. // The comedian had developed a reputation as a contrarian and an iconoclast for whom no topic was off-limits. See the entry > Examples: “Chicago will be the only U.S. city to see the 92-year-old iconoclast Yoko Ono’s new show. ... ‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’ goes back to the start of the artist’s career in the mid-’50s, and the role she played in the creative worlds of New York, Tokyo and London.” — Carrie Shepherd, Axios, 1 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Iconoclast comes from the Middle Greek word eikonoklástēs, which translates literally as “image destroyer.” While the destruction wrought by today’s iconoclasts is figurative—in modern use, an iconoclast is someone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted—the first iconoclasts directed their ire at religious icons, those representations of sacred individuals used as objects of veneration. The Byzantine Empire’s Iconoclastic Controversy occurred in the 8th and 9th centuries, but the word iconoclast didn’t find its way to English until the 17th century. Figurative use came later still.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 29, 2025 is: exculpatory • \ek-SKUL-puh-tor-ee\  • adjective Something described as exculpatory serves to prove that someone is not guilty of doing something wrong. // Their lawyer presented insurmountable exculpatory evidence at the trial. See the entry > Examples: “That agreement also requires prosecutors to implement new policies to prevent the misuse of informants, maintain records and audits, and to disclose exculpatory evidence to criminal defendants involving snitches.” — Salvador Hernandez, The Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Exculpatory is the adjectival form of the verb exculpate, meaning “to clear from guilt.” The pair of words cannot be accused of being secretive—their joint etymology reveals all: they are tied to the Medieval Latin verb exculpare, a word that combines the prefix ex-, meaning “out of” or “away from,” with the Latin noun culpa, meaning “blame.” The related but lesser-known terms inculpate (“to incriminate”) and inculpatory (“implying or imputing guilt”) are antonyms of exculpate and exculpatory. A related adjective, culpable, describes someone or something deserving of blame. All of these words are found most often in formal speech and writing, but if you choose to drop them into everyday conversation, your dictionary exculpates you.