Word of the Day
Learn a new word every day! The Dictionary.com team of language experts carefully selects each Word of the Day to add some panache to your vocabulary.
a covering of minute ice needles, formed at night upon the ground and exposed objects when they have cooled below the dew point, when it is below the freezing point.
Cranreuch appears to be an adaptation of Scottish Gaelic crann-reòthadh, “hoarfrost,” which contains crann, “tree,” and reòth, “frost.” Reòth (also reodh) is a distant relative of English freeze and the Latin-origin Word of the Day pruinose. Cranreuch was first recorded in English circa 1680. EXAMPLE OF CRANREUCH USED IN A SENTENCE The temperature dropped sharply after dusk, leaving the once wet leaves coated in cranreuch.
to twitch.
Vellicate comes from Latin vellicāre, “to pluck, twitch,” from vellere, “to pull, twitch.” Though hairs may be plucked and skin may twitch, there is no connection between vellicate and vellum, a type of parchment made from animal skin, or vellus hair, the tiny hairs found on the human body. Vellicate was first recorded in English around 1600. EXAMPLE OF VELLICATE USED IN A SENTENCE After the morning coffee break, I noticed that my left eye began vellicating from all the caffeine.
matter ejected, as from a volcano in eruption.
Ejecta is a form of Latin ējectus, “thrown out.” Ējectus is ultimately derived from the verb jacere “to throw,” which is the source of numerous English words containing the element ject-, including adjective (literally “thrown toward”), rejection (“thrown back”), subject (“thrown under”), and the Word of the Day disjecta membra. Ejecta was first recorded in English in the late 1880s. EXAMPLE OF EJECTA USED IN A SENTENCE The ejecta from the volcano included minerals from deep inside the Earth.
a sport in which a skier is pulled over snow or ice, by a horse, dog, or a motor vehicle.
Skijoring is a slight alteration of Norwegian skikjøring, which is composed of ski, “ski,” and kjøring, “driving.” Norwegian ski comes from Old Norse skīth, “stick, snowshoe.” Kjøring is from Old Norse keyra, “to whip” and by extension “to drive,” after the use of whips to incite vehicle-pulling animals. Skijoring was first recorded in English circa 1910. EXAMPLE OF SKIJORING USED IN A SENTENCE The day after the blizzard, the ski lodge guests headed outside for sledding, snowshoeing, and skijoring in the deep snow.
a system of writing Japanese using the letters of the Latin alphabet.
Romaji is a borrowing of Japanese rōma, “Rome, Roman,” combined with ji, “character.” Japanese ji can also be found in emoji, kanji, and the Word of the Day kaomoji, and is related to Mandarin zì, “character, word.” Romaji was first recorded in English in the late 1880s. EXAMPLE OF ROMAJI USED IN A SENTENCE Once the Japanese text was rendered in romaji, gamers throughout Europe and the Americas were able to pronounce the game characters’ names.
