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# The Good Oil Word of the Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/the-good-oil-word-of-the-day-443/
- Published: 2025-10-25T17:15:44.000Z
- Updated: 2025-10-25T17:15:43.000Z
- Author: David Theobald
- Tags: General, Word of the Day

The word for today is…

catch-22 (noun):

1: a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule. Also : the circumstance or rule that denies a solution  
2a: an illogical, unreasonable, or senseless situation  
b: a measure or policy whose effect is the opposite of what was intended  
c: a situation presenting two equally undesirable alternatives  
3: a hidden difficulty or means of entrapment : catch

Source : [Merriam -Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catch-22?ref=goodoil.news)

Etymology : Catch-22 originated as the title of a 1961 novel by Joseph Heller. (Heller had originally planned to title his novel Catch-18, but the publication of Leon Uris’s Mila 18 persuaded him to change the number.) The catch-22 in Catch-22 involves a mysterious Army Air Forces regulation which asserts that a man is considered mentally unsound if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions but that if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Catch-22 soon entered the language as a label for any irrational, circular, and impossible situation.

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