The word for today is… aerie (noun) - 1: the nest of a bird on a cliff or a mountaintop 2 obsolete : a brood of birds of prey 3: an elevated often secluded dwelling, structure, or position Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : This word is better known to me as eyrie. English
The word for today is… ginkgo (noun) - : a gymnospermous dioecious tree (Ginkgo biloba) of eastern China that is widely grown as an ornamental or shade tree and has fan-shaped leaves and foul-smelling yellowish fleshy seed coats, called also maidenhair tree Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : There is only one
The word for today is… boustrophedon (noun) - : the writing of alternate lines in opposite directions (as from left to right and from right to left) Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : Before the standardization of writing from left to right, ancient Greek inscribers once used a style called boustrophedon, a word meaning
The word for today is… ignominious (adjective) - 1: humiliating, degrading 2: deserving of shame or infamy : despicable 3: marked with or characterized by disgrace or shame : dishonorable Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : The "-nom-" of "ignominious" comes from "nomen," the Latin word for "name&
The word for today is… nurture (noun, verb) - noun 1: training, upbringing 2: something that nourishes : food 3: the sum of the environmental factors influencing the behavior and traits expressed by an organism verb 1: to supply with nourishment 2: educate 3: to further the development of : foster Source : Merriam-
The word for today is… maverick (noun) - 1: an unbranded range animal, especially : a motherless calf 2: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : When a client gave Samuel A. Maverick 400 cattle to settle a $1,200 debt, the
The word for today is… raffish (adjective) - 1: marked by or suggestive of flashy vulgarity or crudeness 2: marked by a careless unconventionality : rakish Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : Raffish sounds like it should mean "resembling raff." But what is raff? Originally, "raff" was a word meaning
The word for today is… hypochondria (noun) - : excessive concern about one's health especially when accompanied by imagined physical ailments ,specifically : illness anxiety disorder Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : In earlier times: "organs of the upper abdomen behind the ribs, including the liver and gallbladder, are thought to be
The word for today is… susurrous (adjective) - : full of whispering sounds Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : Susurrous derives from the Latin noun susurrus, meaning "a hum" or "a whisper," and may be a distant relative of swarm (think of the collective hum of a beehive). Susurrus is
The word for today is… argy-bargy (noun) - : a lively discussion : argument, dispute Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : Argy-bargy and its slightly older variant argle-bargle have been a part of British English since the second half of the 19th century. Argy and argle evolved in certain English and Scottish
The word for today is… Occam's razor (noun) - : a scientific and philosophical rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms
The word for today is… jocose (adjective) - 1: given to joking : merry 2: characterized by joking : humorous Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : When you need a word to describe something (or someone) that causes or is intended to cause laughter, you might pick jocose or a synonym such as humorous, witty,
The word for today is… xeric (adjective) - : characterized by, relating to, or requiring only a small amount of moisture Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : By the late 1800s, botanists were using the terms xerophyte and xerophytic for plants that were well adapted for survival in dry environments. But some felt the
The word for today is… consecutive (adjective) - : following one after the other in order : successive Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : Consecutive has a good deal in common with the complementary word concurrent. Besides the fact that both begin with the prefix con- (meaning “with, together”), each word deals with the time-
The word for today is… fissiparous (adjective) - : tending to break or split up into parts : divisive Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : When it first entered English in the 19th century, fissiparous was concerned with reproduction. In biology, a fissiparous organism is one that produces new individuals by fission; that is, by
The word for today is… tacit (adjective) - 1: expressed or carried on without words or speech 2: implied or indicated (as by an act or by silence) but not actually expressed Source : Merriam-Webster Etymology : In the first chapter of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the narrator Mr. Lockwood recounts
