GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Alleviate [uh-LEE-vee-ayt] 📖 What It Means: To alleviate something is to make it less painful, difficult, or severe. Alleviate can also mean "to partially remove or correct." 📰 Example: There's no cure for the common cold, but there are various treatments that may alleviate some of the symptoms. 💬 In Context: "The funds are meant to alleviate monetary barriers and enhance the fashion industry's talent pipeline." — Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 30 Oct. 2025 💡 Did You Know? Now for a bit of light reading. Alleviate comes from Latin levis, meaning "having little weight." (Levis also gave rise to the English adjective light as in "not heavy.") In its early days during the 16th century, alleviate could mean both "to cause (something) to have less weight" or "to make (something) more tolerable." The literal "make lighter" sense is no longer used, and today only the "relieve, lessen" sense remains. Incidentally, not only is alleviate a synonym of relieve, it's also a cousin: relieve comes from Latin levare ("to raise"), which in turn comes from levis. 🔗

Word of the Day: Bespoke

In the English language of yore, the verb bespeak had various meanings, including

#WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning

GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Waggish [WAG-ish] 📖 What It Means: Waggish describes someone who is silly and playful, and especially someone who displays a mischievous sense of humor. The word can also describe things that such a person might do or possess. 📰 Example: He had a waggish disposition that could irk adults but typically delighted children. 💬 In Context: “[Patricia] Lockwood began her writing life quietly, as a poet. She found her first major audience on Twitter, posting self-proclaimed ‘absurdities’ ... that quickly came to define the medium’s zany, waggish ethos ...” — Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025 💡 Did You Know? One who is waggish acts like a wag. What, then, is a wag? It has nothing to do with a dog’s tail; in this case a wag is a clever person prone to joking. Though light-hearted in its use and meaning, the probable source of this particular wag is grim: it is thought to be short for waghalter, an obsolete English word that translates as gallows bird, a gallows bird being someone thought to be deserving of hanging (wag being the familiar wag having to do with movement, and halter referring to a noose). Despite its gloomy origins, waggish is now often associated with humor and playfulness—a wag is a joker, and waggery is merriment or practical joking. Waggish can describe the prank itself as well as the prankster type; the class clown might be said to have a “waggish disposition” or be prone to “waggish antics.” 🔗

Word of the Day: Bespoke

In the English language of yore, the verb bespeak had various meanings, including

#WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning