GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Adulation [aj-uh-LAY-shun] 📖 What It Means: Adulation refers to extreme or excessive admiration, flattery, or praise. 📰 Example: The triumphant players were greeted with shouts of adulation. 💬 In Context: “Curators focus on the sunnier side of Elvis's tragic story, yet Graceland still provides an intimate glimpse into superstardom and all that comes with it: the adulation, the opulence, the hangers-on and the darkness that counterbalances such a burst of light.” — Rick Rojas, The New York Times, 29 Nov. 2025 💡 Did You Know? If witnessing a display of adulation reminds you of a dog panting after its beloved person, you’ve picked up adulation’s etymological “scent”; the word ultimately comes from the Latin verb adūlārī, meaning “to fawn on” (a sense used specifically of the affectionate behavior of dogs) or “to praise insincerely.” Adulation has been in use in English since the 15th century. The verb adulate, noun adulator, and adjective adulatory followed dutifully behind. 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Diaphanous [dye-AF-uh-nus] 📖 What It Means: Diaphanous is a formal word used to describe fabric of a texture so fine that one can see through it. Diaphanous is also sometimes used figuratively to describe something characterized by extreme delicacy of form. 📰 Example: The bride looked radiant in her floor-length gown and diaphanous veil. 💬 In Context: "With a bright pattern set on flaming crimson and a diaphanous petticoat underneath, the dress fits her perfectly." — David Wingrave, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025 💡 Did You Know? What do the words diaphanous, epiphany, fancy, phenomenon, sycophant, emphasis, and phase all have in common? The Greek word phaínein shows more clearly in some of these words than in others, but it underlies all of them. The groundwork for diaphanous was laid when phaínein (meaning "to bring to light, cause to appear") was combined with the prefix dia- (meaning "through"). From that pairing came the Greek diaphanḗs ("transparent"), parent of the Medieval Latin diaphanus, which is the direct ancestor of the English word. 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Hornswoggle [HORN-swah-gul] 📖 What It Means: To hornswoggle someone is to trick or deceive them. 📰 Example: I think we were hornswoggled by that magician. 💬 In Context: "Netflix users have been warned to look out for an insidious, AI-powered email scam that looks nearly indistinguishable from the real deal. ... If you have been already hornswoggled by such a scheme, Netflix advises changing your password and reaching out to your bank." — Ben Cost, The New York Post, 3 Mar. 2025 💡 Did You Know? Hornswoggle is a slang word of some considerable mystery, at least where its etymology is concerned. The word appears to have originated in the southern United States in the early 19th century. The earliest known written record comes from an 1829 issue of The Virginia Literary Magazine in its glossary of Americanisms. The magazine states that hornswoggle comes from Kentucky, and that its oddness matches nicely with other 19th-century Americanisms, such as sockdolager, absquatulate, callithump, slumgullion, and skedaddle. While the exact point at which hornswoggle entered our language, and the way in which it was formed, may remain unknown, it is a charming addition to our language, joining bamboozle and honeyfuggle as colorful ways to say "to deceive." 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Prescience [PRESH-ee-unss] 📖 What It Means: Prescience is a formal word used to refer to the ability to see or anticipate what will or might happen in the future. 📰 Example: He predicted the public's response to the proposed legislation with remarkable prescience. 💬 In Context: "... novelists have always faced technological and social upheaval. They have mostly addressed it in one of two ways. The first is to imagine an altered future with the prescience of science fiction; Mary Shelley's warning that humans are not always in control of their creations is, if anything, even more resonant today than when Frankenstein was first published in 1818." — Jessi Jezewska Stevens, The Dial, 2 Dec. 2025 💡 Did You Know? If you know the origin of science you already know half the story of prescience. Science comes from the Latin verb sciō, scīre, "to know," also source of such words as conscience, conscious, and omniscience. Prescience has as its ancestor a word that attached prae-, a predecessor of pre-, to this root to make praescire, meaning "to know beforehand." 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Gargantuan [gahr-GAN-chuh-wun] 📖 What It Means: Gargantuan describes something that is very large in size or amount; something gargantuan is, in other words, gigantic. 📰 Example: Bigfoot is said to be a creature of gargantuan proportions. 💬 In Context: “By the late 1870s, he was asked to take part in the gargantuan task of evaluating and cataloguing the results of the five-year Challenger expedition—an ambitious British global research voyage, the first ever dedicated purely to science. [Ernst] Haeckel’s contribution to the final 50-volume Report of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger took a decade to complete and spanned three volumes, 2,750 pages, and 130 plates.” — Michael Benson, Nanocosmos: Journeys in Electron Space, 2025 💡 Did You Know? Gargantua is the name of a giant king in François Rabelais's 16th-century satiric novel Gargantua, the second part of a five-volume series about the giant and his son Pantagruel. All of the details of Gargantua's life befit a giant. He rides a colossal mare whose tail switches so violently that it fells the entire forest of Orleans. He has an enormous appetite, such that in one incident he inadvertently swallows five pilgrims while eating a salad. The scale of everything connected with Gargantua led to the adjective gargantuan, which since William Shakespeare's time has been used for anything of tremendous size or volume. 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Short Shrift [SHORT-SHRIFT] 📖 What It Means: Short shrift means “little or no attention or thought” or “quick work.” In religious use it refers to barely adequate time for confession before execution. 📰 Example: Certain neighborhoods have received short shrift from the city government. 💬 In Context: “[Charlie] Caplinger echoed the concerns of many speakers at the meeting, with charter captains saying the recreational fishing industry’s economic contributions were being given short shrift.” — Mike Smith, NOLA.com (New Orleans, Louisiana), 6 Nov. 2025 💡 Did You Know? We’ve got a confession to make, but we’ll keep it brief: while it’s technically possible to make “long shrift” of something, you’re unlikely to find long shrift in our dictionary anytime soon. Short shrift, on the other hand, has been keeping it real—real terse, that is—for centuries. The earliest known use of the phrase comes from Shakespeare’s play Richard III, in which Lord Hastings, who has been condemned by King Richard to be beheaded, is told by Sir Richard Ratcliffe to “Make a short shrift” as the king “longs to see your head.” Although now archaic, the noun shrift was understood in Shakespeare’s time to refer to the confession or absolution of sins, so “make a short shrift” meant, quite literally, “keep your confession short.” However, since at least the 19th century the phrase has been used figuratively to refer to a small or inadequate amount of time or attention given to something. 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Preeminent [pree-EM-uh-nunt] 📖 What It Means: Preeminent is a formal word used to describe someone or something more important, skillful, or successful than their counterparts or peers. It is used synonymously with outstanding and supreme. 📰 Example: She's the preeminent chef in a city renowned for its cuisine. 💬 In Context: "In this warmly engaging intellectual biography, [author Paul R.] Viotti traces the life and ideas of Kenneth Waltz, a preeminent figure in post–World War II international relations scholarship." — G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025 💡 Did You Know? What is noteworthy about the following sentence? "Mount Kilimanjaro is a prominent eminence on the Tanzanian landscape." You very likely recognized two words that are closely related to preeminent: prominent and eminence. All three words are rooted in the Latin verb stem -minēre, which is taken to mean "to stand out" though there is no record of its use without a prefix. Mount also deserves an honorable mention: it comes from the Latin mont- or mons, meaning "mountain," which is understood to share a common ancestor with -minēre. Mount leads us in turn to paramount, a word closely related in meaning to preeminent. 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning
GM ☀️ Your word of the day is! 🔤 Reciprocate [rih-SIP-ruh-kayt] 📖 What It Means: To reciprocate is to do something for or to someone who has done something similar for or to you. Reciprocate can also mean “to have (a feeling) for someone who has the same feeling for you.” 📰 Example: It was kind of my friend to give me a ride to the airport, and on the flight I was thinking of how to reciprocate the favor. 💬 In Context: “She entered the post office and greeted Tommaso, who reciprocated with a smile, then Carmine, who stroked his beard and shot her the usual skeptical glance.” — Francesca Giannone, The Letter Carrier (translated by Elettra Pauletto), 2025 💡 Did You Know? “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” “do unto others as you would have them do to you,” “share and share alike”: such is the essence of the verb reciprocate, which implies a mutual or equivalent exchange or a paying back of what one has received. Reciprocate traces back to the Latin verb reciprocare (“to move back and forth”), which in turn comes from the adjective reciprocus, meaning “returning the same way” or “alternating.” Indeed, one of the meanings of reciprocate is “to move forward and backward alternately,” as in “a reciprocating saw.” Most often, however, reciprocate is used for the action of returning something in kind or degree, whether that be a gift, favor, or feeling. 🔗
Word of the Day: Imbue
Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone
 #WordOfTheDay #Nostr #Dictionary #Learning