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# Word of The Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/word-of-the-day-7/
- Published: 2024-06-27T18:15:01.000Z
- Updated: 2024-07-04T06:41:32.000Z
- Author: The Editor
- Tags: General

**Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 27, 2024 is:**

**cardinal** • \\KAHRD-nul\\ • *adjective*  

*Cardinal* is an adjective used to describe things—usually abstract things such as rules or principles—that are of basic or main importance. The word is also used, especially in the phrase “cardinal sin,” with the meaning “very serious or grave.”

// “Seek out multiple sources” is a *cardinal* rule of good news reporting.

// The four *cardinal* points on a compass are North, South, East, and West.

[See the entry >](https://bit.ly/3ziqYgP?ref=goodoil.news)

**Examples:**  

“The *cardinal* rule of stargazing is going somewhere dark—the darker the skies, the better the view.” — Stefanie Waldek, *Travel + Leisure*, 11 Aug. 2023

**Did you know?**  

Mathematics, religion, ornithology—everything seems to hinge on *cardinal*. As a noun, *cardinal* has important uses in all three of the aforementioned realms of human inquiry; as an adjective *cardinal* describes things of basic or main importance, suggesting that outcomes turn or depend on them. Both adjective and noun trace back to the Latin adjective *cardinalis*, meaning “serving as a hinge,” and further to the noun *cardo*, meaning “[hinge](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hinge?ref=goodoil.news).” Since the 12th century, *cardinal* has been used as a noun referring to a fundamentally important clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church, ranking only below the pope. (The clergyman's red robes gave the familiar North American songbird its name.) By the 1300s *cardinal* was also being used as the adjective we know today, to describe abstract things such as principles or rules (as opposed to, say, [red wheelbarrows](https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Carlos-Williams?ref=goodoil.news)) upon which so much depends.