Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 7, 2021 is: archipelago  \ahr-kuh-PEL-uh-goh\ noun  
1 : an expanse of water with many scattered islands

2 : a group of islands

3 : something resembling an archipelago; especially : a group or scattering of similar things  
  
Examples:
  
"The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,100 islands, is recognized globally as a megadiverse nation and a biodiversity hotspot." — [The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 30 Mar. 2021](https://carnegiemnh.org/press/)

"For those who have the choice, an island is a place to go to simplify life, to strip it bare of the constant attention-battering of our world. When Francis was writing he was not to know that, by the time of publication, isolation would have left its island home to push us two metres apart, to make us archipelagos." — [Philip Marsden, The Spectator, 3 Oct. 2020](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/surrounded-by-sea-and-sky-the-irresistible-draw-of-islands)  
  
Did you know?  
   
The Greeks called it the Aegean Pelagos and the Italians referred to it as Arcipelago (meaning "chief sea"), but English speakers now call it the [Aegean Sea](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Aegean%20Sea). Numerous islands dot its expanse, and 16th-century English speakers adopted a modified form of its Italian name for any sea with a similar scattering of islands. In time, archipelago came to refer to the groups of islands themselves, and now it is often used figuratively, as in, for example, "an archipelago of high-rise buildings."

archipelago

Free daily dose of word power from Merriam-Webster's experts

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 25, 2024 is: tendentious  \ten-DEN-shus\ adjective  
Tendentious is a formal word used disapprovingly to describe someone or something expressing a strongly biased point of view in a way that may cause argument.

// The book proved to be a tendentious account of the town's history, written to rescue the reputation of one of its less scrupulous founders.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tendentious)  
  
Examples:
  
“Polls can have their own politics, and media polls are often accused of being tendentious.” — Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal, 26 Oct. 2021  
  
Did you know?  
   
Tendentious is one of several words English speakers can choose when they want to suggest that someone has made up their mind in advance. You may be partial to [predisposed](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predispose) or prone to favor [partisan](https://bit.ly/4a1jvzw), but whatever your leanings, we’re inclined to think you’ll benefit from adding tendentious to your repertoire. Tendentious is a relatively recent arrival to English, considering its Latin roots. In the latter half of the 19th century, English users took the Latinate stem tendenti- (from tendentia, meaning “tendency”) and combined it with the familiar adjective suffix [-ious](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-ious) to form a word describing someone with a tendency to favor a particular point of view, motivated by an intent to promote a particular cause.

tendentious

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 24, 2024 is: burgeon  \BER-jun\ verb  
To burgeon is to grow or develop quickly—in other words to [flourish](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flourish), [blossom](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blossom) or [sprout](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sprout).

// The trout population in the stream has burgeoned since the town implemented its laws against [overfishing](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/overfishing).

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burgeon)  
  
Examples:
  
"From the quaint charm of its historic downtown to the dynamic energy of its burgeoning Arts District, Gilbert [Arizona] offers something for everyone." — Lux Butler, The Arizona Republic, 7 Mar. 2024  
  
Did you know?  
   
Burgeon arrived in Middle English as burjonen, a borrowing from the Anglo-French verb burjuner, meaning "to bud or sprout." Burgeon is often used figuratively, as when writer [Ta-Nehisi Coates](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ta-Nehisi-Coates) used it in his 2008 memoir The Beautiful Struggle: "… I was in the burgeoning class of kids whose families made too much for financial aid but not enough to make tuition payments anything less than a war." Usage commentators have objected to the use of burgeon to mean "to flourish" or "to grow rapidly," insisting that any figurative use should stay true to the word's earliest literal meaning and distinguish budding or sprouting from subsequent growing. But the sense of burgeon that indicates growing or expanding and prospering (as in "the burgeoning music scene" or "the burgeoning international market") has been in established use for decades and is, in fact, the most common use of burgeon today.

burgeon

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 23, 2024 is: exodus  \EK-suh-dus\ noun  
An exodus is a situation in which many people leave a place at the same time—in other words a mass departure or [emigration](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emigration).

// The resort town eagerly anticipated the mass exodus from the cities to its beaches as summer approached.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exodus)
  
  
Examples:
  
“Experts link lower rents to a possible drop in demand after population losses during a recent exodus from parts of Southern California. As the state’s population has stagnated, some believe demand may cool and dampen rent growth.” — Anthony de Leon, The Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 2024   
  
Did you know?  
   
The Biblical book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, so it's no surprise that the word exodus, uncapitalized, has come to refer more generally to any mass departure. Exodus was adopted into English (via Latin) from the Greek word Exodos, which literally means “the road out.” Exodos was formed by combining the prefix ex-, meaning “out of,” and hodos, meaning “road” or “way.” Indeed, many roads led out of hodos into English; other hodos descendants include [episode](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/episode), [method](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/method), [odometer](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/odometer), and [period](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/period). While exodus is occasionally encountered in reference to an individual’s leaving (e.g., “his/her/their exodus”), such usage is likely to raise the eyebrows of editors who feel it should only refer to the departure [en masse](https://bit.ly/491e6rj) of a large group of people, as when novelist [Nnedi Okorafor](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nnedi-Okorafor) writes in her science fiction novel Lagoon (2015): “Everyone was trying to get somewhere, be it a church, a bar, home or out of Lagos. Then there was the exodus of people … to the parts of the city that had the least chance of flooding if the water rose too high.”

exodus

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 22, 2024 is: palpable  \PAL-puh-bul\ adjective  
Something described as palpable is obvious and notable. Palpable may also be used as a synonym of [tangible](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tangible) to describe something that can be perceived by one's sense of touch. 

// The tension in the courtroom was palpable as the jury foreman stood to announce the verdict.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palpable)  
  
Examples:
  
"The power of the ancestral people who built [Cliff Palace](https://www.britannica.com/video/22034/group-cliff-dwellings-Colorado-Mesa-Verde-National) feels palpable as I stand inside the cliff hollow, marvelling at towers and rooms that slot together perfectly." — Linda Barnard, The Toronto Star, 16 Sept. 2023  
  
Did you know?  
   
If you find it fascinating how English speakers push words with concrete meanings into [figurative](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/figurative) use, we feel you. By which we mean we understand you, of course, not that we are patting your head or poking you in the shoulder. Palpable, which has since the 14th century described things that can be literally felt through the skin (such as a person’s pulse), has undergone an expansion similar to that of [feel](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feel) over the centuries, and is now more frequently used to describe things that cannot be touched but are still so easy to perceive that it is as though they could be—such as "a palpable tension in the air."

palpable

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 21, 2024 is: noblesse oblige  \noh-BLESS-uh-BLEEZH\ noun  
Noblesse oblige refers to the idea that people who have high social rank or wealth should be helpful and generous to people of lower rank or to people who are poor.

// As the inheritor of a great fortune, he was raised to have a strong sense of noblesse oblige, not only volunteering and donating to charity, but advocating for structural change to address inequality.

[See the entry >](https://bit.ly/3UK16mJ)
  
  
Examples:
  
“As is usually the case, actual research reveals that the pair bond of the cardinal is not really sacrosanct. The ostensibly quaint couples we see regularly have a 20% divorce rate, which is of course better than our own, but they are not exactly swans. And while they are mated, they are generally monogamous, but [polygyny](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polygyny) is known. It is, however, usually observed in cases where the male of an adjacent territory goes missing or because an unmated female persists in foraging and remaining in a male’s territory. A strange form of noblesse oblige. It has not been determined whether these second pairings produce any offspring.” — Bill Chaisson, The Eagle Times (Claremont, New Hampshire), 20 Jan. 2024  
  
Did you know?  
   
In a tale collected in 16th-century Germany, a noblewoman wonders why the hungry poor don’t simply eat Krosem (a sweet bread), her cluelessness [prefiguring](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prefigure) the later, much more famous quote attributed to [Marie Antoinette](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Antoinette-queen-of-France): “let them eat cake.” The queen [never actually said that](https://www.britannica.com/story/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake), but we can think of the sentiment behind noblesse oblige as the quote’s opposite—something more like “let us bake them a cake since we own all the eggs/flour/sugar/etc.” In French, noblesse oblige means literally “nobility obligates.” It was first quoted in English in the early 19th century, before being used as a noun referring to the unwritten obligation of [aristocrats](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aristocrats) to act honorably and generously to others. Later, by extension, it also came to refer to the obligation of anyone who is in a better position than others—due, for example, to high office or celebrity—to act respectably and responsibly.

archipelago

Download our free app to listen on your phone