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.
overparticular; fussy.
Persnickety “overparticular, fussy” is a variant of pernickety, a Scottish English word of uncertain origin. Per- is a common prefix in expressive words in the Scots language, such as perjink “exact, neat, trim,” perskeet “fastidious,” and perjinkity “exact detail,” all of which are similar in meaning to persnickety. One hypothesis is that persnickety and pernickety are compounds of this prefix per- and the noun nick “small notch, hollow place” or a diminutive of nick such as nickett. Alternatively, persnickety could be related to the adjective snickety, also meaning “fussy,” or to the noun snicket “passageway between walls or fences,” but the connection is unclear. The final theory is that persnickety and pernickety are heavily corrupted variants or fusions of particular “exceptionally selective” and finicky “excessively fastidious.” Persnickety was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
the generalization of a cube to four dimensions.
Tesseract “a four-dimensional cube” derives from Ancient Greek tésseres (also téttares) “four,” which is also the source of tessellate “to form small squares,” after the number of sides in a square, and the combining form tetra- “four,” as in tetrahedron, a figure with four faces, and tetralogy, a series of four related books or films. Tésseres comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kwetwer-, which is the source of English four, forty, fortnight, and farthing and Latin quattuor and quadri- “four” (as in quatrain, a four-line poem, and quad, a four-sided common space), quārtus “fourth” (as in quarter, which is one-fourth of a dollar), and quater “four times” (as in quaternary “consisting of four”). Tesseract was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
a sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person whose body is buried elsewhere.
Cenotaph “a monument erected in memory of a person buried elsewhere” derives by way of Latin cenotaphium from Ancient Greek kenotáphion, literally meaning “empty tomb,” from kenós “empty” and táphos “tomb.” A common misconception is that the ceno- element of cenotaph is related to the identical combining forms ceno- (also caeno- or caino-) “new” and ceno- (also coeno-) “common,” but despite the resemblance, there is no connection. The diphthongs ai and oi in Ancient Greek, which were adapted as ae and oe in Latin, both frequently become e in American English, which can easily result in homonyms—words that sound and are spelled the same but are unrelated. A similar example occurred with the element pedo- in pedology, which can mean “soil science” when pedo- is derived from Ancient Greek pédon “soil,” or can mean “the study of child development” when pedo- is derived from Ancient Greek paîs (stem paid-) “child.” Cenotaph was first recorded at the turn of the 17th century.
of no force or effect; ineffective; futile; vain.
Nugatory “of no force or effect” comes from Latin nūgātōrius “worthless, useless,” from the verb nūgārī “to trifle.” Nūgārī, in turn, derives from the plural noun nūgae “trifles, idle talk, frivolities,” which is also the source of nugacious, a synonym of nugatory, and nugacity, a noun that means “insignificance.” While it may seem odd that Latin features nouns such as nūgae that always appear in the plural, English is no stranger to nouns that usually or exclusively appear in plural form. Many objects that contain two component parts, such as pants, trousers, scissors, and shears, are typically limited to the plural, as are certain location-related words, such as headquarters and surroundings. Nugatory was first recorded in English at the turn of the 17th century.
noting or pertaining to rhythmic biological cycles recurring at approximately 24-hour intervals.
Circadian “pertaining to 24-hour biological cycles” is a coinage based on two Latin terms: the preposition circā “about, around” and diēs “day.” English has also adapted circā directly (as circa) when providing estimates of dates. If you were wondering why circā resembled circle and circus, it is because all three words descend from Ancient Greek kírkos “ring, circle.” Latin diēs is also the source of day-related words such as diary, diet, and meridian; the term also has an adjective form, diurnus “daily,” which is the source of words such as diurnal and journal, as we learned about in the etymology for the recent Word of the Day selection toujours perdrix. Circadian was first recorded in English in the late 1950s.
