Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 16, 2019 is: shanghai  \shang-HYE\ verb  
1 a : to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug 

b : to put by force or threat of force into or as if into a place of detention

2 : to put by trickery into an undesirable position  
  
Examples:
  
Nate was shanghaied by his sister into helping her sell shirts at the lacrosse tournament after her friend bailed out.

"In time, the new novel, lurching around his psyche, dragged itself away and became real. How I loved to see him shanghaied like that, careening down the rum-soaked wharves of imagination…." — Diane Ackerman, Hundred Names for Love: A Memoir, 2011  
  
Did you know?  
   
In the 1800s, long sea voyages were very difficult and dangerous, so people were understandably hesitant to become sailors. But sea captains and shipping companies needed crews to sail their ships, so they gathered sailors any way they could—even if that meant resorting to kidnapping by physical force or with the help of liquor or drugs. The word shanghai comes from the name of the Chinese city of Shanghai. People started to use the city's name for that unscrupulous way of obtaining sailors because the East was often a destination of ships that had kidnapped men onboard as crew.

shanghai

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 6, 2024 is: plangent  \PLAN-junt\ adjective  
Something, such as a sound, that is described as plangent is loud, deep, and often expressive of sadness or suffering. The word is a synonym of [plaintive](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plaintive).

// The campers were awoken by the plangent howl of a coyote off in the distance.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plangent)  
  
Examples:
  
“Adjuah sings in a keening, plangent tone, but at one point he pauses to offer a spoken invitation: ‘Listen to the wind,’ he says. ‘The voices calling to you from yesterday.’” — Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times, 30 June 2023  
  
Did you know?  
   
Plangent adds power to our poetry and prose: the pounding of waves, the beat of wings, the tolling of a bell, the throbbing of the human heart, a lover’s knocking at the door—all have been described as plangent. The word plangent traces back to the Latin verb plangere, which has two meanings. The first of those meanings, “to strike or beat,” was sometimes used by Latin speakers in reference to striking one’s breast in grief. This led to the verb’s second meaning, “to lament.” The sense division carried over to the Latin adjective plangens and then into English, giving us two distinct meanings of plangent: “pounding” (as in “the plangent roar of waves”) and “expressive of woe, grief, or melancholy.” Like its synonym plaintive, plangent is often used to describe sounds, from bittersweet melodies to the wails of mourners, evoking deep and heartfelt sadness.

plangent

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 5, 2024 is: proliferate  \pruh-LIF-uh-rayt\ verb  
To proliferate is to increase quickly in number or amount.

// Problems have proliferated in recent months; every day seems to present a new challenge that needs sorting out.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proliferate)
  
  
Examples:
  
“Patches of scrub continue to emerge and then fall away as the canopy of young self-sown trees begins to shade them out. The beavers have created hectares of new open water and channel complexes. Deadwood is ubiquitous. Topsoil continues to grow, and fungi proliferate.” — Isabella Tree, The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding, Big and Small, 2023  
  
Did you know?  
   
Proliferate is a [back-formation](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/back-formation) of proliferation. That means that proliferation came first (we borrowed it from French in the 1700s), and was later shortened to form the verb. Proliferation originally referred to the botanical phenomenon of some plants having buds, flowers, or other parts that are [adventitious](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adventitious)—that is, that arise or occur sporadically or in other than the usual location (e.g. [pitch pines’](https://bit.ly/4afWl9o) ability to sprout new trees directly from their stumps after a fire). With advances in the study of biology in the 1800s, proliferation came to be used to refer to the rapid and repeated production of [cells](https://www.britannica.com/science/cell-biology) by division. That sense in turn [begat](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beget) the verb proliferate, which eventually came to be used when anything—whether living (such as yeast) or nonliving (such as data)—quickly increases or multiplies.

proliferate

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 4, 2024 is: agrarian  \uh-GRAIR-ee-un\ adjective  
Something described as agrarian has to do with farms and farming.

// Joan hopes to leave city life behind and move to a more agrarian region where she plans to raise lambs and grow heirloom vegetables. 

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agrarian)
  
  
Examples:
  
"In an interview, [cultural studies researcher, Toni] Smith said fantasizing about agrarian life is nothing new. History presents cyclical 'back-to-the-land' movements, from America’s early West-settling pioneers to the homesteaders of the Great Depression." — Hannah Macready, Ambrook Research, 17 Aug. 2023  
  
Did you know?  
   
Today, an [acre](https://www.britannica.com/science/acre-unit-of-measurement) is generally considered to be a unit of land measuring 43,560 square feet (4,047 square meters). Before that standard was set, it's believed that an acre represented a rougher measurement: the amount of land that could be plowed in one day with a [yoke](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yoke) of oxen. Both [acre](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acre) and agrarian come from the Latin noun ager and the Greek noun agrós, meaning "piece of land; field." (You can probably guess that [agriculture](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agriculture) is another descendant.) Agrarian, first used in English in the 16th century, describes things pertaining to the cultivation of fields, as well as to the farmers who cultivate them.

agrarian

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 3, 2024 is: melee  \MAY-lay\ noun  
Melee refers to a confused fight or struggle, especially one involving hand-to-hand combat.

// What started as a verbal disagreement at the football game soon turned into a general melee involving scores of spectators.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/melee)  
  
Examples:
  
"The battle scenes are a Hollywood mishmash of medieval melees, meaningless [cannonades](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cannonade), and World War I-style infantry advances." — Franz-Stefan Gady, Foreign Policy, 2 Dec. 2023   
  
Did you know?  
   
English has no shortage of words for confused and noisy fights, some ([fray](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fray), [brawl](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brawl), [scrap](https://bit.ly/3J6dR3R)) more common than others ([donnybrook](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/donnybrook), [fracas](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fracas)). Melee tends to be encountered more often in written rather than spoken English, but it is far from obscure, and has seen increasing use especially in the context of video games featuring some form of hand-to-hand combat. Such games allow players to [mix it up](https://bit.ly/4cUqA7w) with all manner of rivals and [baddies](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/baddie) from the comfort and safety of their home, with mix being an especially apt word alongside melee: the latter comes from the French word mêlée, which in turn comes from the Old French verb mesler, meaning "to mix."

melee

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 2, 2024 is: forfend  \for-FEND\ verb  
Forfend is used in contexts relating to some kind of real or pretended danger or other unpleasantness. In humorous and ironic use, forfend typically appears in the phrase “heaven forfend,” and, like “heaven forbid,” expresses a usually ironic desire that something not happen or be done. In general use, if you forfend something unwanted or undesirable, you ward it off or prevent it; and if you forfend yourself from or against something, you protect or preserve yourself from it.

// Heaven forfend that people actually pick up dictionaries and read them!

// By studying your dictionary, you may forfend any risk of not knowing the meaning of a word.

// To forfend against the prospect of being at a loss for words, we recommend you read the Word of the Day daily. 

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forfend)
  
  
Examples:
  
“Cigarette companies financed armies of letter and op-ed writers, think tank reports, and ‘expert’ testimony promoting the return of DDT. … Big Tobacco fought for the return of DDT, [Elena] Conis argues, because the pesticide made for such ‘a helpful scientific parable, one that, told just right, illustrated the problem of government regulation of private industry gone wrong.’ It was private companies, and not politicians—or, heaven forfend, the people—who should decide what products should be produced, and how.” — Scott W. Stern, The New Republic, 31 May 2022  
  
Did you know?  
   
Forfend is an unusual word in that its most commonly used sense is considered [archaic](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archaic), meaning it survives in English chiefly in specialized uses. When forfend was first used in the 14th century, it meant “to forbid.” It still does but only in phrases, like “heaven forfend” or “God forfend,” that have an exaggeratedly old-timey ring to them. (The use is also typically humorous and/or ironic.) Put another way, substituting forfend for [forbid](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forbid) in any other context would sound strange, as in “students are forfended from using cell phones in the classroom.” Other senses of forfend, including “to protect or preserve” and “to ward off or prevent,” are current, though much less common. The fend part of the word comes from the same Latin source as [defend](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/defend).

shanghai

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