Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Build your vocabulary with Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day! Each day a Merriam-Webster editor offers insight into a fascinating new word -- explaining its meaning, current use, and little-known details about its origin.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day is a arts podcast hosted by Merriam-Webster, with 10 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Merriam-Webster hosts Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, a arts show with 10 episodes published.

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  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

  august

  Aug 22, 20262 min

  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 22, 2026 is: august • \aw-GUST\  • adjective The word august , which is pronounced with the accent on "gust," describes someone or something marked by majestic dignity or grandeur. // We toured the old mansion's august halls and expansive grounds. See the entry > Examples: "His tone is temperate, but the words echo through the State Capitol’s Assembly chamber, the august backdrop for his speech." — Maya Singer, Vogue , 1 Feb. 2026 Did you know? The Roman republican calendar spanned just ten months, from March (then Martius ) through December. The last five months were each named for their numerical place on the calendar: Quintilis (fifth), Sextilis (sixth), September (seventh), October (eighth), November (ninth), and December (tenth). January and February were eventually added to create a twelve-month year, obscuring the relationship between these months and their titles. So it was a welcome change when the Roman Senate honored Gaius Octavius (aka Octavian), the first Roman emperor, by changing Sextilis to Augustus —the designation taken by Octavian from the Latin adjective augustus meaning "worthy of honor" or " venerable ." Although August has been the English name of the eighth month of the year since before the 12th century, it wasn't until the late 1500s that august came to be used as an adjective (pronounced \aw-GUST\), more or less as augustus was in Latin.

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  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

  rigmarole

  Aug 21, 20262 min

  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 21, 2026 is: rigmarole • \RIG-uh-muh-rol\  • noun Rigmarole refers to a long, complicated, and annoying process, description, etc. // We went through the rigmarole of installing, registering, and activating the software before we found out it wouldn’t work. See the entry > Examples: “Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with running. On the one hand, I love it for the mental benefits. My mind always feels clearer after a run and it can be an escape from the rigmarole of life. But on the other hand, it seems that every few years, some mild injury befalls me that slows my momentum, or I move to a new city and lose the routine of running at a time and place.” — Maura Fox, The San Diego Union-Tribune , 6 Sept. 2025 Did you know? In the Middle Ages, the term Rageman or Ragman referred to a game in which a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse. The roll was called a Ragman roll after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses. By the 16th century, ragman and ragman roll were being used figuratively to mean “a list or catalog.” Both terms fell out of written use, but ragman roll persisted in speech, and in the 18th century it resurfaced in writing as rigmarole , with the meaning “a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements.” In the mid-19th century rigmarole (also spelled rigamarole , reflecting its common pronunciation) acquired the sense referring to a complex and tedious procedure.

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  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

  divulge

  Aug 20, 20262 min

  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 20, 2026 is: divulge • \dih-VULJ\  • verb To divulge something, especially secret or private information, is to make it known. // Rather than divulge the baby name we’ve chosen, we’re waiting till the little one arrives to make introductions. See the entry > Examples: “ Sun Ra’s agent had called, he said. ... The Arkestra was heading out on tour soon, to Europe, and Sonny wanted the three of us to join him. ... After we’d calmed down, Don divulged the hitch: the tour would take us away for the school year’s last weeks, meaning we would miss exams and also all the end-of-college parties.” — Michael Lowenthal, Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation , 2026 Did you know? Information divulged is typically secret, or known only to insiders, and it isn’t usually shouted from the rooftops. But when divulge first entered English in the 15th century, it did so as a synonym of proclaim : divulging involved declaring or announcing something to the public, a duty of town criers from Lizard Point to Dunnet Head . The word’s source is the Latin verb vulgare , “to make known,” which traces ultimately back to the Latin noun vulgus , meaning “common people” or “mob.” While nowadays divulge can presumably involve blabbing to the rabble , the word usually implies a more careful and considered approach to sharing sensitive information.

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  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

  balmy

  Aug 19, 20262 min

  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 19, 2026 is: balmy • \BAH-mee\  • adjective Balmy is an adjective that is often used to describe weather that is warm, calm, and pleasant. It can also be used to describe someone or something (such as an idea) that is foolish or irrational. // After a long, eight-hour drive, we were rewarded with a mild, balmy evening at our vacation spot on the shores of Lake Erie. // Despite being a devout Green Bay fan, she finds the idea of attending games in head-to-toe yellow and green body paint to be a bit balmy . See the entry > Examples: “Everyone is encouraged to bring chairs, snacks and coolers, and remember the flashlights for the walk back to the parking lot. Leashed dogs are welcome, too. These evenings are all about enjoying good music on a balmy summer night.” — The Sun (Elizabethtown, New York), 18 June 2026 Did you know? Aromatic ointments and fragrances are the bomb . They are also, literally, balms : healing substances and soothing scents with the power to ease both mind and body. The original balm, what Latin-speakers referred to as balsamum , was the oleoresin of a species of balsam tree. In Anglo-French, balsamum became basme and baume , spellings which entered Middle English and later became balm . Balm eventually begat the adjective balmy , used to describe things with a balm’s comforting, calming qualities, as when Shakespeare’s Othello speaks of “balmy slumbers.” Today balmy is typically used to describe the weather—balmy breezes, balmy temperatures, balmy spring afternoons, et al—conditions that are neither too hot nor too cold, but just right— Goldilocks conditions, even.

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  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

  oxymoron

  Aug 18, 20262 min

  Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 18, 2026 is: oxymoron • \ahk-sih-MOR-ahn\  • noun An oxymoron is a combination of words that have opposite or very different meanings, such as "cruel kindness" or "open secret." In broader usage, oxymoron can also refer to something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements. // Some of Shakespeare's most famous plays are filled with oxymorons such as "loving hate" and "tragical mirth." See the entry > Examples: "Even the most environmentally aware beauty editors I know (perhaps that’s an oxymoron , given the amount of product we have to test for our jobs…) use sheet masks on a weekly basis, and the trend is showing no signs of slowing." — Melanie Macleod, Hello Magazine , 15 Apr. 2026 Did you know? The ancient Greeks exhaustively classified the elements of rhetoric , or effective speech and writing, and gave the name oxymoron —literally "pointed foolishness"—to the deliberate juxtaposing of seemingly contradictory words. The roots of oxymoron , oxys meaning "sharp" or "keen," and mōros meaning "foolish," are nearly antonyms themselves, making oxymoron nicely self-descriptive. Oxymoron originally applied to a meaningful paradox condensed into a couple of words, as in "lonely crowd" or "sweet sorrow." Today, however, what is commonly cited as an oxymoron is often simply a curiosity of language, where one or both elements have multiple meanings ( shrimp in "jumbo shrimp" doesn't mean "small"; it refers to a sea creature), or a phrase whose elements seem antithetical in spirit, such as "organized chaos."

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