expunge

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 30, 2025 is: expunge • \ik-SPUNJ\  • verb To expunge something is to remove it completely, whether by obliterating it, striking it out, or marking it for deletion. Expunge is most commonly applied in cases in which documentation of something is removed from an official record. // Due to an error, the charges were expunged from their record. See the entry > Examples: “... Bland et al. found that an offer to expunge a criminal record after participation in a rehabilitation program reduced crime as well as the measure of harm. This appears to indicate that motivation drives rehabilitation—which is important to consider in judging character in the present.” — Wendy L. Patrick, Psychology Today, 1 Dec. 2024 Did you know? In medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, a series of dots was used to mark mistakes or to label material that should be deleted from a text, and those deletion dots—known as puncta delentia—can help you remember the history of expunge. Puncta comes from the Latin verb pungere, which can be translated as “to prick or sting” (and you can imagine that a scribe may have felt stung when their mistakes were so punctuated in a manuscript). Pungere is also an ancestor of expunge, as well as a parent of other dotted, pointed, or stinging terms such as punctuate, compunction, poignant, puncture, and pungent.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 29, 2025 is: impetus • \IM-puh-tus\  • noun Impetus refers to a force or impulse that causes something (such as a process or activity) to be done or to become more active. It is often used with for and sometimes with to. // Her work provided the major impetus behind the movement. // The tragic accident became an impetus for changing the safety regulations. // The high salary and generous benefits package were impetus enough to apply for the job. See the entry > Examples: “... using the many tools now available, I built a family tree with over twelve hundred names of people living in some two dozen countries. If there is anything approaching a single story of humanity, it is surely one of movement, whatever the impetus.” — Diana McCaulay, LitHub.com, 27 Feb. 2025 Did you know? Impetus provides the “why” for something: it can be understood as a driving force (as when winning a competition is the impetus for training), an incentive (as when increased skills serve as an impetus for taking a class), or encouragement (as when difficulties are the impetus for improvements). But its root packs more of a wallop: Latin impetus means “assault” as well as “impetus,” and it comes from impetere meaning “to attack.” (Impetere itself comes from petere, meaning “to go to, seek.”) If these origins seem a tad aggressive for such a genteel-sounding word as impetus, consider phrases and idioms like light a fire under someone and push comes to shove, both used when a strong impetus is provided for someone to act, decide, or accomplish something.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2025 is: restive • \RES-tiv\  • adjective Restive can describe a person or group feeling impatience or uneasiness, or it can describe someone who is stubbornly resistant to control. // The audience grew increasingly restive as the speaker droned on and on. // The school's focus on artistic expression helps restive youths stay engaged in their learning. See the entry > Examples: "One of the most important triggers for industrial revolution in England was the draining of the population from the rural areas into the cities. ... [T]his meant that there was a growing shortage of agricultural workers and a concomitant fall in food production both in terms of quality and quantity. The immediate consequence was that available food not only became more expensive but increasingly so with time. Under these circumstances, the workers became restive, demanding the provision of the food they needed to save themselves from starvation." — Adebayo Lamikanra, The Nation (Nigeria), 13 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Restive is descended from the Anglo-French verb rester, meaning "to stop, resist, or remain." Its initial meaning in the 15th century was "stubbornly resisting control or guidance; obstinate in refusal," and for some time the word was primarily applied to animals such as horses. Over the next few centuries, restive gained additional, closely related meanings (such as "inflexible," "sluggish," and "persistent") and the word often described people as well as animals. In the 19th century this semantic drift extended to encompass the meaning "marked by impatience or uneasiness." Although the original "balky" sense of restive hasn't died out completely, it is overshadowed by this more recent "fidgety or impatient" one. Some usage guides still recommend against using restive in this modern sense, despite well over a century and a half of skilled writers employing it. If you're among the restive (earlier meaning) ones who balk at new meanings of words, we apologize if this news makes you feel restive (newer one).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 27, 2025 is: oblige • \uh-BLYJE\  • verb To oblige a person or entity to do something is to require or force them to do it, either because of a law or rule, or because it is necessary. To simply oblige someone is to do them a favor. // The law obliges the government to release certain documents to the public. // When my friend said he needed someone to taste test his new recipe for the cooking competition, I was happy to oblige. See the entry > Examples: “I was irked 30 years ago when our neighbor said she intended to install a free-standing fence between our driveways. … It seemed unneighborly to humans and wildlife alike. We were a family who spent more time outdoors than in, always nearby when our neighbor pulled into her driveway. Once the fence was up, she was no longer obliged to speak to us.” — Margaret Renkl, New York Times, 2 June 2025 Did you know? If you are obliged by a rule or law you are metaphorically bound by it—that is, you are required to obey it. The idea of binding links the word to its Latin source, ligāre, meaning “to fasten, bind.” But in other common uses, the idea of binding is somewhat masked: it is applied when someone is bound by a debt for some favor or service, as in “We’re much obliged to you for the help,” but in the phrase “happy to oblige” it simply expresses a willingness to do someone a favor, as in “They needed a ride and we were happy to oblige.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2025 is: sumptuous • \SUMP-shuh-wus\  • adjective Sumptuous is used to describe things that are very expensive, rich, luxurious, or magnificent. // The celebratory meal was a sumptuous feast of dishes from our host’s homeland. See the entry > Examples: “With comfy living areas with bistro tables, sumptuous marble bathrooms, and large private lanais with sweeping views of the ocean, mountain, or gardens, guests have ample room to spread out, relax, and really make themselves at home.” — Elizabeth Brownfield, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens may be a few of your favorite things, but are they sumptuous? Alas, though the best things in life are often free, sumptuous is a child of the Latin word sumptus, meaning “expense,” and it typically describes things that can only be had at some significant expense. A sumptuous lifestyle, for example, is more likely to involve silver-white bling than a silver-white winter that melts into spring. Sumptus has another English relation, this one tied even more closely to conspicuous consumption: sumptuary laws are largely historical regulations limiting extravagant expenditures and habits, especially on moral or religious grounds. (The sump is consumption is coincidental; that word comes from consume, which has its roots in Latin sumere meaning “to take up, take.”)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2025 is: sumptuous • \SUMP-shuh-wus\  • adjective Sumptuous is used to describe things that are very expensive, rich, luxurious, or magnificent. // The celebratory meal was a sumptuous feast of dishes from our host’s homeland. See the entry > Examples: “With comfy living areas with bistro tables, sumptuous marble bathrooms, and large private lanais with sweeping views of the ocean, mountain, or gardens, guests have ample room to spread out, relax, and really make themselves at home.” — Elizabeth Brownfield, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens may be a few of your favorite things, but are they sumptuous? Alas, though the best things in life are often free, sumptuous is a child of the Latin word sumptus, meaning “expense,” and it typically describes things that can only be had at some significant expense. A sumptuous lifestyle, for example, is more likely to involve silver-white bling than a silver-white winter that melts into spring. Sumptus has another English relation, this one tied even more closely to conspicuous consumption: sumptuary laws are largely historical regulations limiting extravagant expenditures and habits, especially on moral or religious grounds. (The sump in consumption is coincidental; that word comes from consume, which has its roots in Latin sumere meaning “to take up, take.”)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 25, 2025 is: flotsam • \FLAHT-sum\  • noun Flotsam refers to the floating pieces that remain after a shipwreck, or more broadly to any floating debris or wreckage. It is also used figuratively to refer to miscellaneous or unimportant material, often in the phrase "flotsam and jetsam." // Driftwood and other flotsam washed onto the beach. // Their apartment was adorned with the flotsam and jetsam of thrift stores and yard sales. See the entry > Examples: "The Vancouver multidisciplinary artist and educator [Alex Tedlie-Stursberg] works in various mediums, using found objects and natural materials scavenged from the ocean’s edge and the landscape of the city. Detritus and flotsam become parts of beautiful sculptures, tableaus and assemblages in this artist's hands." — Dana Gee, The Vancouver (British Columbia) Sun, 23 Nov. 2024 Did you know? English speakers started using flotsam, jetsam, and lagan as legal terms in the 16th and 17th centuries, with flotsam itself dating to the first years of the 17th. The three words were used to establish claims of ownership of the three types of seaborne, vessel-originated goods they named. Flotsam was anything from a shipwreck (the word comes from Anglo-French floter, meaning "to float"), and jetsam and lagan were items thrown overboard to reduce the cargo weight of a ship. Lagan was distinguished from jetsam by having a buoy attached so the goods could be found if they sank. In the 19th century, when flotsam and jetsam took on extended meanings, they developed synonymous applications and are today often paired, lagan having mostly been left at sea.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 24, 2025 is: noisome • \NOY-sum\  • adjective Noisome is a formal and literary word used to describe things that are very unpleasant or disgusting; it is used especially to describe offensive smells. Noisome can also mean “highly obnoxious or objectionable” as in “we were put off by their noisome habits.” // The noisome odor of a trash can in the alley was so strong that even diners seated inside the adjacent restaurant complained to staff. See the entry > Examples: “During the fourteenth century, the bubonic plague outbreak that came to be known as the Black Death claimed thousands of victims, condemning them to a rapid and painful end. As the sufferers deteriorated, the disease tainted them with a tell-tale, repellent stench, which seemed to confirm smell as the root cause of the illness. ... Noisome dwellings were set right by fumigation, while rooms were doused with strong-smelling substances like vinegar and turpentine—anything to keep at bay the dreaded miasma.” — Ashley Ward, Where We Meet the World: The Story of the Senses, 2023 Did you know? Noisome looks and sounds like a close relation of noisy, but it’s not. While noisy describes what is excessively loud, noisome typically describes what is excessively stinky. (It is also used to describe things offensive to the senses generally, as well as things that are highly obnoxious, objectionable, or simply harmful.) Noisome comes from the synonymous Middle English noysome, which combines the suffix -some, meaning “characterized by a specified thing,” and the noun noy, meaning “annoyance.” Noisy, incidentally, comes ultimately from Latin nausea, meaning “nausea.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 23, 2025 is: wherewithal • \WAIR-wih-thawl\  • noun Wherewithal refers to the means, skills, resources, or money that is needed to get or do something. // The company does not have the financial wherewithal to expand into other markets at this time. See the entry > Examples: "... it is heartening to know that there are people of real influence who have the will and wherewithal to help lift the city out of the doldrums." — Scott Wright, The Herald (Scotland), 15 May 2025 Did you know? If wherewithal sounds like three words smashed together, that’s because it is—sort of. Wherewithal combines where and withal, an adverb from Middle English that is itself a combination of with and all. In the past, wherewithal was used as a conjunction meaning "with or by means of which" and as a pronoun meaning "that with or by which." Today, however, it is almost always used as a noun to refer to the means or resources a person or entity has at their disposal. It refers especially to financial resources, but other means such as social influence, ability, and emotional capacity may also be termed as "wherewithal."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 22, 2025 is: bemuse • \bih-MYOOZ\  • verb If you are bemused by something, you are confused or bewildered by it, and often also somewhat amused. // The contestant seemed somewhat bemused by the question, but gave the correct answer. See the entry > Examples: “The duck touched down on the surface of Raymond James Stadium just minutes before the Bucs scored their own touchdown. ... Many of the staff not assigned to work on the field were bemused by the sight of Anchor carrying a duck out of the stadium. They held cellphones and took pictures.” — Rick Stroud, The Tampa Bay (Florida) Times, 1 Jan. 2025 Did you know? In 1735, British poet Alexander Pope lamented, in rhyme, being besieged by “a parson much bemus’d in beer.” The cleric in question was apparently one of a horde of would-be poets who pestered Pope with requests that he read their verses. Pope meant that the parson had found his muse—his inspiration—in beer. That use of bemused harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of “Poets … irrecoverably Be-mus’d.” In both letter and poem, Pope used bemused to allude to being inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses, the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted “bemus’d in beer” as meaning “left confused by beer,” and their confusion gave rise to the “bewilder” sense of bemuse. The newer (and very common) use of bemuse to mean “to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement” is a topic of some dispute, as discussed here.