Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 25, 2023 is: envisage \in-VIZ-ij\ verb

To envisage something is to picture it in your mind, or to view or regard something in a particular way.

// She envisages many positive changes and opportunities in the New Year.

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

Examples:

“Amid all his onscreen work, [Sheb] Wooley never stopped writing songs. And the one that took off … was ‘The Purple People Eater,’ which skewered the musical crazes of the time by envisaging a grotesque space invader taking the bait.” — Morgan Enos, UDiscoverMusic.com, 31 Oct. 2023

Did you know?

Envisage this: a word is borrowed from French in the mid-17th century and sticks around to be used in the 21st. It’s not hard to picture; envisage is not alone in this accomplishment. Used today to mean “to have a mental picture of something, especially in advance of realization” and “to view or regard something in a certain way,” envisage for a time could also mean “to confront or face someone.” That use, which is now archaic, nods to the word’s origin: we borrowed envisage from French, but the visage part is from Anglo-French vis, meaning “face.” (It reaches back ultimately to Greek idein, “to see.”) [Visage](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/visage) is of course also an English word. It entered English much earlier, in the 14th century, and is typically used today in literary contexts to refer to a person’s face. Envisage isn’t necessarily restricted to literary contexts, but it does have a formal tone. Its near twin [envision](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/envision) (“to picture to oneself”), which has been with us since the 19th century, is interchangeable with envisage in many contexts and is somewhat less formal.