The word for today is… irascible (adj) – Easily provoked, testy, touchy, short-tempered. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : If you try to take apart irascible in the same manner as irrational, irresistible, or irresponsible, you might find yourself wondering what ascible means—but that’s not how irascible came to be.
The word for today is… iconoclast (noun) – 1. One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions. 2. One who destroys sacred religious images. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : “Breaker or destroyer of images,” 1590s, from French iconoclaste and directly from Medieval Latin iconoclastes, from Late
The word for today is… germane (adj) – Related to a matter at hand, especially to a subject under discussion. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : “Wert thou a Leopard, thou wert Germane to the Lion.” So wrote William Shakespeare in his tragic play Timon of Athens, using an old (and now-obsolete)
The word for today is… fecund (adj) – 1. (a) Capable of producing offspring or vegetation; fruitful. (b) Characterised by or suggestive of fertility. 2. Characterised by intellectual productivity. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Fecund and its synonyms fruitful and fertile all mean producing or capable of producing offspring or fruit,
The word for today is… deleterious (adj) – Having a harmful effect. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Pernicious, baneful, noxious, and detrimental are the wicked synonyms of deleterious. All five words refer to something exceedingly harmful. Of the group, deleterious is most often used for something that is unexpectedly harmful. Pernicious
The word for today is… continual (adj) – 1. Recurring regularly or frequently. 2. Not interrupted; steady. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Since the mid-19th century, many grammarians have drawn a distinction between continual and continuous. Continual should only mean “occurring at regular intervals,” they insist, whereas continuous should be used
The word for today is… bivouac (noun) – A temporary encampment often in an unsheltered area. (verb) – To camp in a bivouac. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : In the 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster observed bivouac to be a French borrowing having military origins.
The word for today is… bas-relief (noun) – (Art Terms) sculpture in low relief, in which the forms project slightly from the background but no part is completely detached from it. Also called (Italian): basso rilievo Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : The best way to understand the meaning of bas-relief is
The word for today is… abscond (verb) – To leave quickly and secretly and hide oneself, often to avoid arrest or prosecution. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Abscond derives from Latin abscondere, meaning “to hide away,” a product of the prefix ab- and condere, a verb meaning “to conceal.” (Condere is
The word for today is… desuetude (noun) – A state of disuse or inactivity. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Desuetude must be closely related to disuse, right? Wrong. Despite the similarities between them, desuetude and disuse derive from two different Latin verbs. Desuetude comes from suescere, a word that means “to
The word for today is… calliope (noun) – 1 (Greek Mythology) The Muse of epic poetry. 2. A musical instrument fitted with steam whistles, played from a keyboard. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : With a name literally meaning “beautiful-voiced” (from kallos, meaning “beauty,” and ops, meaning “voice”), Calliope was the most
The word for today is… brackish (adj) – 1. (a) Being or containing water that is somewhat salty but less salty than sea water. (b) Having a somewhat salty taste or smell. 2. Distasteful; unpalatable: Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s,
The word for today is… augur (verb) – 1. One of a group of ancient Roman religious officials who foretold events by observing and interpreting signs and omens. 2. A seer or prophet; a soothsayer. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Auguring is what augurs did in ancient Rome. Augurs were official
The word for today is… adscititious (adj) – Not inherent or essential; derived from something outside. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Adscititious comes from a very “knowledgeable” family—it ultimately derives from sc?scere, the Latin verb meaning “to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve.” The related sc?re means
The word for today is… tortuous (adj) – Circuitous; devious; full of twists, turns, or bends. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Be careful not to confuse tortuous with torturous. These two words are relatives—both ultimately come from the Latin verb torquere, which means “to twist,” “to wind,” or “to wrench”
The word for today is… sporadic (adj) – 1. Occurring at irregular intervals or in isolated or scattered places; having no pattern or order. 2. (Medicine) Not epidemic, endemic, or inherited. Used of a disease or condition. Source : The Free Dictionary Etymology : Sporadic describes the distribution of something across space or
