Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 13, 2024 is: gargoyle \GAR-goy-ul\ noun

A gargoyle is a strange or grotesque human or animal figure that sticks out from the roof of a building (such as a church) and is used to cause rainwater to flow away from the building's sides.

// Some of the exchange students were creeped out by all the gargoyles they passed during their walking tour of the old European town.

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

Examples:

"Disney simply did not need to go this hard, and yet here we are. A clan of gargoyle protectors from medieval times are cursed to become statues until a scheming billionaire genius frees them in the present. From there, the clan spends their nights fighting their many enemies while protecting the humans that fear them." — Gavin Jasper, Den of Geek, 19 Aug. 2023

Did you know?

In the 12th century, [St. Bernard of Clairvaux](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Bernard-of-Clairvaux) reportedly complained about the new sculptures in the [cloisters](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloisters) where he lived. "Surely," he is quoted as saying, "if we do not blush for such absurdities we should at least regret what we have spent on them." St. Bernard was apparently provoked by the grotesque figures designed to drain rainwater from buildings. By the 13th century, those figures were being called gargoyles, a name that came to Middle English from the Old French word gargoule. The stone beasts likely earned that name because of the water that gargled out of their throats and mouths; the word gargoule is imitative in origin.