Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 14, 2025 is:

bamboozle \bam-BOO-zul\  verb

To bamboozle someone is to deceive, trick, or confuse them.

// The salesperson bamboozled us into getting a more expensive item than we had planned to buy.

See the entry >

Examples:

"'We're not trying to make a perfect film that's, like, got a twist: Oh my God, the coach is a ghost! We're not out to bamboozle audiences or get awards or anything,' [Taika] Waititi told Polygon. The director continued, 'We want to make a nice movie, a true story about a football team, and the only message is, "Be happy and don’t live in the past."'" — Monica Mercuri, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024

Did you know?

In 1710, Irish author Jonathan Swift wrote an article on "the continual Corruption of our English Tongue" in which he complained of "the Choice of certain Words invented by some pretty Fellows." (Note that pretty originally meant "artful, clever.") Among the inventions Swift disliked was bamboozle, which was used by contemporary criminals. Beyond those who favored the word, little is known of its early days, but the word has clearly defied Swift's assertion that "All new affected Modes of Speech ... are the first perishing Parts in any Language." With its first syllable like a sound effect, bamboozle hints at mystification or magic when it is used to mean "to confuse, frustrate, or perplex," as in "The batters were bamboozled by the pitcher's dazzling curveball."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 13, 2025 is:

curfew \KER-fyoo\  noun

Curfew refers to a law or order that requires people to be indoors after a certain time at night, as well as to the period of time when such an order or law is in effect. Chiefly in the United States, curfew is also used to refer to the time set by a parent or caregiver at which a child has to be back home after going out.

// No one is allowed on the streets during the curfew.

// Lana has a 10 o’clock curfew, so we need to bring her home right after the movie.

See the entry >

Examples:

“[Lew] Alcindor narrowed his college choice to Michigan, Columbia, St. John’s, and UCLA. He liked Columbia as the chance to attend school walking distance to Harlem and a subway ride to the jazz clubs he had to leave early as a high schooler to make curfew.” — Scott Howard-Cooper, Kingdom on Fire: Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty, 2024

Did you know?

Curfews set by parents (and kept or broken by their offspring) do not echo the origins of the word curfew in any discernable way—if they did, they’d need to at least hint at the sound of a bell. When curfew was first used in the 14th century, it referred to the sounding of a bell at evening to alert people that they should cover their hearth fires for the night—a necessary warning, as many European houses in the Middle Ages were close enough to each other that fires could spread easily from one to the next. The word came to English from Anglo-French, in which the signal was called coverfeu, a compound of covrir, meaning “to cover,” and feu, “fire.” Even when hearth fires were no longer regulated, many towns had other rules that called for ringing an evening bell, including one that required people to be off the streets by a given time, a development that granted curfew permission to go out and about with a broader meaning.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 12, 2025 is:

multifarious \mul-tuh-FAIR-ee-us\  adjective

Something described as multifarious has great diversity or variety, or is made up of many and various kinds of things. Multifarious is a formal word and a synonym of diverse.

// He participated in multifarious activities throughout college.

See the entry >

Examples:

"Over the course of his multifarious career, [musician Pat] Metheny has led numerous bands, more than a few of whose members later became band leaders in their own right." — George Varga, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Oct. 2023

Did you know?

Before the late 16th-century appearance of multifarious, English speakers used another word similar in form and meaning: multifary, meaning "in many ways," appeared—and disappeared—in the 15th century. Before either of the English words existed, there was the Medieval Latin word multifarius, from the Latin adverb multifariam, meaning "in many places." Multi-, as you may know, means "many," and is used to form, well, multifarious English words, from multicultural to multimillion. The word omnifarious ("of all varieties, forms, or kinds"), a relative of multifarious, is created with omni- ("all") rather than multi-.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2025 is:

quark \KWORK\  noun

Quark is a word used in physics to refer to any one of several types of very small particles that make up matter.

// Quarks, which combine together to form protons and neutrons, come in six types, or flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.

See the entry >

Examples:

“One quantum field is special because its default value can change. Called the Higgs field, it controls the mass of many fundamental particles, like electrons and quarks. Unlike every other quantum field physicists have discovered, the Higgs field has a default value above zero. Dialing the Higgs field value up or down would increase or decrease the mass of electrons and other particles. If the setting of the Higgs field were zero, those particles would be massless.” — Matt Von Hippel, Wired, 19 Aug. 2024

Did you know?

If you were a physics major, chances are that James Joyce didn’t make it onto your syllabus. While literature majors are likely more familiar with his work, Joyce has a surprising tie to physics. In the early 1960s, American physicist Murray Gell-Man came up with the word quork, which he used to refer to his concept of an elementary particle smaller than a proton or neutron (by his own account he was in the habit of using names like “squeak” and “squork” for peculiar objects). He later settled on the spelling quark after reading a line from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: “Three quarks for Muster Mark! / Sure he has not got much of a bark / And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.” The name stuck and has been used by physicists ever since.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 10, 2025 is:

imperturbable \im-per-TER-buh-bul\  adjective

Imperturbable describes someone or something marked by extreme calm; such a person or thing is very hard to disturb or upset.

// The imperturbable captain did not panic when the boat sailed into the path of a violent storm.

// Nothing disrupted the contestant's imperturbable focus.

See the entry >

Examples:

"The thick heat is not letting up after a long stretch of nearly-90-degree-days, though the crowd has not seemed to notice. Instead, these thousands of people emanate a truly imperturbable energy as they get to see gospel legend Mavis Staples for free." — David Cohn, The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley), 13 Oct. 2024

Did you know?

Imperturbable is a bit of a mouthful, but don’t let its five syllables perturb you. Instead, let us break it down: this word, as well as its antonym perturbable, comes from the Latin verb perturbare, meaning "to agitate, trouble, or throw into confusion." Perturbare comes in turn from the combination of per-, meaning "thoroughly," and turbare, meaning "to disturb"; unsurprisingly perturbare is also the source of the English verb perturb. Other perturbare descendants include disturb ("to destroy the tranquility or composure of") and turbid ("thick or opaque with or as if with roiled sediment").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 9, 2025 is:

wend \WEND\  verb

Wend is a literary word that means “to move slowly from one place to another usually by a winding or indirect course”; wending is traveling or proceeding on one’s way in such a manner.

// Hikers wend along the marked trails to the top of the mountain, which provides a panoramic view of the area towns.

// We wended our way through the narrow streets of the city’s historic quarter.

See the entry >

Examples:

“Otters do not like to share food.... There is a flickering movement of jaws before they swallow and dive again. For a moment I think they have left, then they surface once more and I make out two long shapes, one just ahead of the other. They wend their way further down the waterway before insinuating themselves back into the dark.” — Miriam Darlington, Otter Country: In Search of the Wild Otter, 2024

Did you know?

“Out through the fields and woods / And over the walls I have wended …” So wrote poet Robert Frost in “Reluctance,” using the word’s familiar sense of “to direct one’s course.” By the time of the poem’s publication in 1913, many other senses of wend had wended their way into and out of popular English usage including “to change direction,” “to change someone’s mind,” “to transform into something else,” and “to turn (a ship’s head) in tacking.” All of that turning is linked to the word’s Old English ancestor, wendan, which shares roots with the Old English verb, windan, meaning “to twist” (windan is also the ancestor of the English verb wind as in “the river winds through the valley”). Wend is also to thank for lending the English verb go its past tense form went (as a past tense form of wend, went has long since been superseded by wended).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 8, 2025 is:

gregarious \grih-GAIR-ee-us\  adjective

Gregarious is used to describe someone who enjoys the company of other people.

// Justin’s gregarious personality made it easy for him to get to know people at the networking event.

See the entry >

Examples:

“How can we reap the benefits of deep connection if we are not naturally gregarious and extroverted? But as I have delved into the evidence, I have discovered that our social skills are like our muscles—the more we use them, the stronger they become. Even self-declared introverts can learn to be more sociable, if they wish.” — David Robson, BBC, 23 July 2024

Did you know?

Everyone knows that birds of a feather flock together, so it comes as no surprise that gregarious was applied mainly to animals when it first began appearing in English texts in the 17th century. After all, gregarious comes from the Latin noun grex, meaning “flock” or “herd,” and it’s tough to avoid being social when you’re part of a flock, flying and roosting cheek by jowl (or beak) with your fellow feathered friends. Take starlings, for example, which congregate in massive numbers—we define the word starling as “any of a family of usually dark gregarious birds,” meaning that starlings are inclined to associate with others of their kind. By the 18th century gregarious was being used to describe social human beings as well, be they chatty Cathys or convivial Connors who relish being in the company of others.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 7, 2025 is:

emollient \ih-MAHL-yunt\  noun

An emollient is something, such as a lotion, that softens or soothes.

// She keeps a number of oils in the bathroom—argan, almond, and coconut—to use as emollients.

See the entry >

Examples:

"Jojoba oil and squalene are plant oils and emollients, which means they moisturize and soften skin by reinforcing its natural barrier and forming a layer that prevents moisture from escaping; beef tallow is considered an emollient, too." — Katie Mogg, The New York Times, 18 July 2024

Did you know?

The noun emollient is used most often in reference to a substance—such as an oil, cream, lotion, butter, or balm—used to treat someone's skin or hair. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it traces back to a Latin word, the verb emollire, meaning "to soften or soothe." Emollire, in turn, formed in part from the adjective mollis, meaning "soft." (Another descendant of mollis is mollify, which means "to make softer in temper or disposition.") Emollient first appeared in print in English in the early 1600s as an adjective with the meaning "making soft or supple," describing things such as herbs, medicines, and poultices; the noun arrived on the scene soon after.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 6, 2025 is:

career \kuh-REER\  verb

To career is to go at top speed especially in a headlong manner.

// The tourists gripped their seats and exchanged anxious looks as the bus careered along the narrow roads.

See the entry >

Examples:

“This winter, I attended a livestock auction on California’s remote northern coast. Ranchers sat on plywood bleachers warming their hands as the auctioneer mumble-chanted and handlers flushed cows into a viewing paddock one by one. Most of the cows were hale animals, careering in and cantering out.” — Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic, 12 Apr. 2024

Did you know?

If you’re already familiar with career’s equestrian history, surely you joust. The noun career dates to the early 16th century, when it referred to the speed of something moving along a particular course. To go “in full career” or “at full career” was to hurtle, barrel, blaze, or zip, a meaning employed by Sir Walter Scott in a jousting scene in his historical romance Ivanhoe: “The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other in full career.” The verb career thus originally conveyed the action of a horse or rider making a short gallop or charge, as when the very aptly named John Speed wrote in his 1611 Historie of Great Britain “his horse of a fierce courage carrierd [=careered] as he went.” Career later gained additional senses applied to the movement of horses, such as “to prance or caracole” (“to turn to one side and another in running”), as well as one—“to rush forward quickly and recklessly”—that can be applied to anything or anyone feeling their oats, velocity-wise. Note that careen can also be used with that last meaning, but it originally meant something else.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 5, 2025 is:

askew \uh-SKYOO\  adjective

Askew means “not straight” or “at an angle,” and can be used as both an adjective and an adverb.

// The picture on the cabin wall was slightly askew.

// The picture was hung askew on the cabin wall.

See the entry >

Examples:

“I reread ‘Biography of Nigeria’s Foremost Professor of Statistics, Prof. James Nwoye Adichie,’ by Emeritus Professor Alex Animalu, Professor Peter I. Uche, and Jeff Unaegbu, published in 2013, three years before my father was made professor emeritus of the University of Nigeria. The printing is uneven, the pages slightly askew, but I feel a euphoric rush of gratitude to the authors. Why does this line—‘the children and I adore him’—from my mother’s tribute soothe me so; why does it feel pacifying and prophetic? It pleases me that it exists, forever declared in print.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker, 10 Sept. 2020

Did you know?

If you watch enough nature documentaries you may notice that gazelles are able to escape the claws (and, subsequently, jaws) of cheetahs when they zigzag across the savannah rather than simply run in a straight line. In Middle English, prey outmaneuvering a predator in this way might be said to be “skewing.” Skew means both “to take an oblique course” (as it does in modern English too) as well as “to escape,” and comes from the Anglo-French word eschiver, meaning “to escape or avoid.” It’s this skew, with its suggestion of crooked lines, that forms the basis of the adjective askew (the prefix a- means “in [such] a state or condition”). Askew is used as both an adjective and an adverb to describe things or actions that are a little off, not straight, or at an angle. The “escape” sense of the Middle English skew isn’t so much implied by askew, but we suppose that a painting hanging askew on one’s wall could be, metaphorically speaking, attempting to escape from the rest of the décor.