Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Herald is a verb meaning "to give notice of"; it is synonymous with announce, publicize, and foreshadow. Herald may also mean "to greet especially with enthusiasm."

// The appearance of robins heralded the advent of spring.

// She is being heralded as the year's best new author.

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"Trumpets herald the arrival of the players at the arena." — Simon Webster, The New Yorker, 14 Dec. 2023

While herald the verb is more common today, herald the noun is older. When the word was first welcomed into English in the early 14th century, it referred to an official at a tournament (one of those knightly sporting events the Middle Ages are famous for). The herald's duties included making announcements, hence the word's uses relating to announcements both literal and metaphorical. The word is ultimately Germanic in origin, though like so many words of 14th century vintage, it came to English by way of Anglo-French. The resemblance between herald and the name Harold is not coincidental: Harold is a modern form of Chariovalda, the name of a 1st century C.E. leader of the Batavi, a tribe who lived on the lower Rhine. The Germanic source of Chariovalda, haria-, is also the source of herald.

Fealty is an old-fashioned and somewhat literary word that refers to intense loyalty or fidelity to a person, group, etc. More narrowly, fealty refers to the fidelity of a vassal or feudal tenant to their lord.

// Authors who inspire such fealty can guarantee a publisher good sales, no matter the quality of the books they write.

// Kneeling before the entire court, the knight pledged his fealty to the king.

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“[Director, Denis] Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ movies deserve admiration if only for their fealty and ambition; the filmmaker’s respect for [Frank] Herbert’s source material radiates from every frame of movies that feel as massive as they are minutely orchestrated.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2024

In The Use of Law, published posthumously in 1629, Francis Bacon wrote, “Fealty is to take an oath upon a book, that he will be a faithful Tenant to the King.” That’s a pretty accurate summary of the early meaning of fealty. Early forms of the term were used in Middle English in the early 14th century, when they specifically designated the loyalty of a vassal to a lord. Eventually, the meaning of the word broadened. Fealty can be paid to a country, a principle, or a leader of any kind, though the synonyms fidelity and loyalty are more commonly used. Fealty comes from the Anglo-French word feelté, or fealté, which comes from the Latin noun fidēlitās, meaning “fidelity.” These words come ultimately from fidēs, the Latin word for “faith.”

Someone described as sanctimonious behaves as though they are morally superior to others. Language or behavior that suggests the same kind of moral superiority can also be described as sanctimonious.

// While the subject matter was interesting, I found the presenter’s sanctimonious tone rather distracting.

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“Smart and sincere but never sanctimonious, the awareness-raising drama doubles as a public service message of sorts.” — Peter Debruge, Variety, 13 Mar. 2024

There’s nothing sacred about sanctimonious—at least not anymore. But in the early 1600s, the English adjective was still sometimes used to describe someone truly holy or pious, a sense at an important remove from today’s use describing someone who acts or behaves as though they are morally superior to others. (The now-obsolete “pious” sense recalls the meaning of the word’s Latin parent, sanctimonia, meaning “holiness” or “sanctity.”) Shakespeare used both the “holy” and “holier-than-thou” senses of sanctimonious in his work, referring in The Tempest to the “sanctimonious” (that is, “holy”) ceremonies of marriage, and in Measure for Measure to “the sanctimonious pirate that went to sea with the Ten Commandments but scraped one out of the table.” (Apparently, the pirate found the restriction on stealing inconvenient.)

A catastrophe is never a good thing. Catastrophe can refer to a momentous tragic event, an utter failure, a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth, or a violent usually destructive natural event.

// Despite her careful planning, the party turned out to be a catastrophe.

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"In the event of a major catastrophe like a hurricane, the agency would have a funding reserve set aside for initial response and recovery operations." — Ella Nilsen, CNN, 10 June 2024

When catastrophe was borrowed from Greek in the 1500s it was a term for tearjerkers: the catastrophe was the conclusion or final event of a usually tragic dramatic work. (Greek katastrophē, which means the same thing, comes from katastrephein, meaning "to overturn.") From there, the word moved on to occupy other territory relating to tragic happenings, utter failures, and the worst sort of natural disasters. Just as disaster can range from a calamitous event to one that is merely unsuccessful, catastrophe can refer to what is truly devastating as well as to what is simply deeply disheartening. In Henry IV, Part 2, Shakespeare opted to steer the word away from disaster entirely and plant it squarely in the world of burlesque: "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" May all our catastrophes be of such a comic variety.

Extenuate is a formal word that is most often used to mean “to lessen the strength or effect of something, such as a risk.” In legal use, to extenuate a crime, offense, etc., is to lessen or to try to lessen its seriousness or extent by making partial excuses.

// Developers are trying to extenuate the various risks associated with the product.

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“Oedipus, paragon of problem-solvers, discovers by the end of the play the limits of his own keen intellect. In trying to outrun his fate, he learns that he is part of a design that is larger than his understanding. But it is as a victim of fate that he finds the freedom to assume a courageous responsibility for deeds committed in ignorance. ... Nothing can extenuate the horror of acts he spent his adult life trying to avoid.” — Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times, 12 Sept. 2022

Extenuate is most familiar in the phrase “extenuating circumstances,” which refers to situations or facts that provide a partial justification or excuse for something. The word extenuate can, however, also be used all on its own. Its most typical use is with the meaning “to lessen the strength or effect of something, such as a risk,” but it also has legal use closely related to the meaning of “extenuating circumstances”; to extenuate a crime, offense, etc., is to lessen or to try to lessen its seriousness or extent by making partial excuses. Extenuate didn’t get its start in this semantic territory, however. It was borrowed into English in the 1500s with a now-archaic meaning it took directly from its Latin forebear, extenuare: “to make light of; to treat as unimportant.” Extenuate is today mostly at home in technical and legal contexts, but it occasionally appears in general writing with what may be a developing meaning: “to prolong, worsen, or exaggerate.” This meaning, which is likely influenced by the words extend and accentuate, is not yet fully established.

Visage is a formal word that refers to someone’s face or facial expression, or to the general appearance of something.

// Manny was surprised to see the smiling visage of his childhood friend, now running for the state senate, beaming down from a billboard.

// Don’t be intimidated by the rugged visage of the mountain; it’s accessible to climbers of all skill levels.

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“[Keri] Russell was 22 when she was cast in the title role of Felicity. At the beginning of the series, her character was 17 years old, but thanks to Russell’s preternaturally youthful visage (and that glorious head of hair!), she pulled it off believably.” — Jessica Sager, Parade, 7 Jan. 2024

In “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem, a traveller tells of a colossal statue’s “shattered visage” lying half sunk in desert sands, going on to describe its “frown / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command…” Now, Shelley could have simply chosen face over the more highfalutin synonym visage, but not only would face shatter the sonnet’s iambic pentameter, but a formal-sounding word is sometimes preferable to a basic one for all kinds of reasons, including sound, tone, or simply the cut of its jib. Physiognomy, for instance, refers to facial features thought to reveal qualities of temperament or character, as when Emily Brontë writes in Wuthering Heights, “I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed.” Countenance, meanwhile, is often used to refer to the face as an indication of mood or emotion, as in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance.” As all of these quotes attest, when it comes to wordsmithery, sometimes you’ve just got to vamp.

Someone or something described as amiable is friendly and agreeable.

// Both children have amiable dispositions, which makes them easy to travel with.

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"An amiable, Honda Civic–driving, bird-watching Everyman in shorts and glasses, Gary somehow turns out to be the perfect fake assassin." — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 24 May 2024

Amiable has its roots in amīcus the Latin word for "friend," and can ultimately be traced back to the verb amare, meaning "to love." English has been friendly with amiable since the 14th century, at which time it meant "pleasing" or "admirable" (a sense that is now obsolete). The current, familiar senses of "generally agreeable" and "friendly and sociable" came centuries later. Amare has also given English speakers such words as amative and amorous (both meaning "strongly moved by love"), amour ("a usually illicit love affair"), and even amateur (which originally meant "admirer"). And that’s just the tip of the amare iceberg: its influence on Romance languages is nothing short of integral. The Spanish word for "friendship" is amistad, the French word for "friend" is ami, and the Italian word for "love"? That’s amore.

To nonplus someone is to perplex them, or in other words, to cause them to be at a loss as to what to say, think, or do.

// The stranger's odd question about the town where my grandfather was born nonplussed me.

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"Motherhood is only somewhat less likely to nonplus the reader than How Should a Person Be? On one level, it's a feminist disputation over art versus maternity—whether a female writer must be a mother or whether she can get away with being just (just!) a writer. But this is also a book about life with a capital L." — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 10 Feb. 2022

Does nonplus perplex you? You aren't alone. Some people believe the non in nonplus means "not," and assume that to be nonplussed is to be calm and poised, but in fact the opposite is true. If you are among the baffled, the word's history may clarify things. In Latin, non plus means "no more." When nonplus debuted in English in the 16th century, it was used as a noun synonymous with quandary. Someone brought to a nonplus had reached an impasse in an argument and could say no more. In short time, people began applying nonplus as a verb, and today it is often used in participial form with the meaning "perplexed" (as in "Joellen's strange remark left us utterly nonplussed").

Tomfoolery is a word with an old-fashioned sound to it that refers to playful or silly behavior.

// The antics in the play itself apparently inspired tomfoolery behind the scenes as well, as cast members constantly played practical jokes on one another.

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“Children aged seven and older are invited to be part of some musical mischief with the BBC Concert Orchestra and star percussionist Colin Currie, not to mention the world premiere of the Beano Concerto for percussion and orchestra. Actors and animation will also play a part and there’s plenty of audience participation too. Prepare for charming tomfoolery and the perfect first foray into classical music.” — Martha Alexander, The Evening Standard (London), 30 May 2023

The word tomfoolery owes a debt to one Thome Fole, but just who that Mr. Fole was is unclear. A court jester identified as Thome Fole was employed at Durham Abbey in the 14th century, but the record is unclear about whether Thome Fole was the given name of this particular performer, or if the name was applied as a generic moniker to jesters. Regardless, Thome Fole eventually evolved into tomfool, which was in use as a noun referring to any notable fool by the early 17th century, and as an adjective describing such fools by the mid-18th century. Tomfoolery as a term for playful or foolish behavior didn’t come into use until the early 19th century, but it’s proven to be of far more use to English speakers than tomfool.

Otiose is a formal word typically used to describe either something that serves no useful purpose, or something that has no use or effect.

// I enjoyed the storyline, but was bothered by the otiose punctuation.

// The new zoning regulations rendered their proposal for the empty lot otiose.

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"Christian Tetzlaff has only begun to play the concerto recently, but it was a masterly performance. The concentrated tension, always the hallmark of Tetzlaff’s playing, never flagged.... In other hands, an encore might have been otiose after all that. But Tetzlaff’s playing of the andante from Bach’s A minor solo sonata proved just as magical, and seemed to draw the entire hall into its hushed meditations." — Martin Kettle, The Guardian (London), 25 Aug. 2023

In this life, some pursuits seem destined to set the world on fire while others simply aren’t worth the candle. That’s where otiose comes in. The adjective traces back to the Latin noun otium meaning “leisure.” When otiose was first used in the late-18th century it described things that, like leisure (at least according to some), are pointless or otherwise produce no useful result, as in “it would be otiose to ask you about the book since you haven’t read it yet.” By the mid-19th century it was also being used to describe people who indulge a bit too much in leisure and idleness—your loafers, layabouts, and lazybones—and thus need a fire lit under them. Both otiose and the noun otiosity (which predates the adjective by several centuries) are usually found in formal writing, but should you have a burning desire to do so, feel free to drop either into casual contexts at your leisure.