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Word of the Day

Word of the day

susurrus

[ soo-sur-uhs ] [ sʊˈsɜr əs ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

noun

a soft murmuring or rustling sound; whisper.

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Why Dictionary.com chose susurrus

More about susurrus

EXAMPLES:

  • The wind rustled through the trees, creating a gentle susurrus that echoed in the forest.
  • In the library, whispered conversations created a faint susurrus in the background.
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Word of the day

CAPTCHA

[ kap-chuh ] [ ˈkæp tʃə ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

noun

an online test designed so that humans but not computers are able to pass it, used as a security measure and usually involving a visual-perception task.

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Why Dictionary.com chose CAPTCHA

More about CAPTCHA

  • CAPTCHA was first recorded around 2000–05.
  • CAPTCHA comes from the words Completely Automated Public Turing (Test to Tell) Computers and Humans Apart.
  • A Turing test is a test proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing that is often taken as a test of whether a computer has humanlike intelligence.
  • If a panel of human beings conversing with an unknown entity (via keyboard, for example) believes that that entity is human, and if the entity is actually a computer, then the computer is said to have passed the Turing test.

EXAMPLES OF CAPTCHA

  • To ensure security, the website introduced a CAPTCHA feature that required users to complete a quick pattern recognition task before logging in.
  • It is often more difficult than one would expect to correctly identify all the traffic lights in a CAPTCHA.
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Word of the day

nonplussed

[ non-pluhst ] [ nɒnˈplʌst ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

adjective

completely puzzled or perplexed by something unexpected.

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Why Dictionary.com chose nonplussed

More about nonplussed

  • Nonplussed was first recorded in 1600–10, and comes from the verb nonplus, “to render utterly perplexed by something unexpected.”
  • Nonplus comes from the Latin phrase nōn plūs, which literally means, “not more, no further,” as in, not much more can be done.
  • More recently, nonplussed has been used to mean “indifferent or unexcited,” a contradictory second meaning.
  • One explanation for this is the analysis of nonplussed as non– “not” + plussed, interpreted as “not puzzled, perplexed, bothered, or impressed,” when in fact plussed has no meaning in English.

EXAMPLES OF NONPLUSSED

  • The complex riddle posed by the professor left the students nonplussed, as they struggled to come up with a logical solution.
  • Upon hearing the mind-boggling plot twist in the movie, I sat in silence, completely nonplussed by the unexpected turn of events.
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