Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 20, 2023 is: churlish \CHUR-lish\ adjective

Churlish is a formal word that means “irritable and rude.”

// It would be churlish not to congratulate the winning team because we lost the match.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/churlish)

Examples:

“‘Ted Lasso’ has gradually become more of a light drama than a comedy, but it’s such a pleasant one that it seems churlish to even point this out. In that dramatic vein, the show's depiction of Nate is more compelling than I might have anticipated. The series has never been particularly interested in validating the man-child archetype, but it is interested in how insecurity can manifest itself into toxic behavior and Nate is the epitome of that.” — Nina Metz, The Chicago Tribune, 15 Mar. 2023

Did you know?

In Old English, the word [ceorl](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ceorl) referred to a free peasant—someone who was neither part of the nobility nor enslaved or in debt. In Anglo-Saxon England, which lasted roughly from the 5th to 11th centuries, [ceorls](https://britannica.com/topic/ceorl) had many rights that peasants of lower social status did not, and a few even rose to the rank of [thane](https://www.britannica.com/money/topic/thane-feudal-lord). However, as most ceorls were driven into the class of unfree [villeins](/dictionary/villein) over the centuries, especially following the [Norman Conquest](https://www.britannica.com/event/Norman-Conquest), the connotation of the word ceorl—spelled cherl in Middle English and then finally churl—diminished as well, eventually coming to mean “a lowly peasant” and later “a rude, ill-bred person.” Similarly, churlish began in the form ceorlisc in Old English as a simple descriptor of someone with the rank of ceorl, but today it describes a [boorish](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boorish) person, or their rude and insensitive behavior.