Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 20, 2023 is: nudnik \NOOD-nik (the "OO" is as in "good")\ noun

Nudnik refers to a person who is a bore or nuisance.

// She dreads family gatherings, as her nudnik of a brother-in-law is always sure to be there droning on about this or that.

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

Examples:

“A ‘comic book obsessed nudnik,’ [Anthony] Bourdain was born in Manhattan on his literary hero’s birthday (George Orwell) and grew up in New Jersey. Deeply influenced by Hunter S. Thompson, ‘Angry Anthony’ was raised in a household under the ‘smothering chokehold of love and normalcy,’ as he wrote in Medium Raw.” — Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2022

Did you know?

The suffix -nik, meaning “one connected with or characterized by being,” came to English through Yiddish (and ultimately from Polish and Ukrainian). You might know it from such words as [beatnik](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beatnik), [peacenik](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peacenik), [neatnik](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neatnik), or even [no-goodnik](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/no-goodnik). The suffix -nik is frequently used in English to create [nonce words](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonce%20word) that are often playfully jokey or slightly derogatory. Some theorize that the popularity of the suffix was enhanced by Russian [Sputnik](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Sputnik), as well as Al Capp's frequent use of -nik words in his [L'il Abner](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lil-Abner-comic-strip-by-Capp) cartoons. The nud- of the Yiddish borrowing nudnik ultimately comes from the Polish word nuda, meaning “boredom.”