Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 30, 2011 is:

shivaree • \shiv-uh-REE\  • noun
: a noisy mock serenade to a newly married couple

Examples:
On the night of Sally and Henry's wedding, the townspeople gathered outside the couple's window to participate in a raucous shivaree.

A shivaree on Virginia Street brought these youngsters together to bang pots and make noise on the occasion of the Shovlin family wedding. -- From Debbie Bowman Shea's 2011 book Irish Butte

Did you know?
In 19th century rural America, a newly-married couple might be treated to a mock serenade, performed with pots, pans, homemade instruments, and other noisemakers. Such cacophonous serenades were traditionally considered especially appropriate for second marriages or for unions deemed incongruous because of an age discrepancy or some other cause. In the eastern U.S. this custom, imported from rural England, was simply called a serenade or known under various local names. In much of the central U.S. and Canada, however, it was called a shivaree, a loan from French charivari, which denotes the same folk custom in France. In more recent years, shivaree has also developed broader senses; it is sometimes used to mean simply a cacophony or a celebration.

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osmose: to gradually or unconsciously assimilate some principle or object.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 29, 2011 is:

ken • \KEN\  • noun
1 a : the range of vision b : sight, view 2 : the range of perception, understanding, or knowledge

Examples:
The author advised the aspiring writers in the crowd to develop an authoritative voice by sticking to subjects within their ken.

[Yemeni President Ali Abdullah] Saleh and his military-based regime are steering the country into a demographic and political minefield, and it's already far beyond their ken to steer out of it. -- From an article by Ellen Knickmeyer in Foreign Policy, February 10, 2011

Did you know?
Ken appeared on the English horizon in the 16th century as a term of measurement of the distance bounding the range of ordinary vision at sea -- about 20 miles. British author John Lyly used that sense in 1580 when he wrote, They are safely come within a ken of Dover. Other 16th-century writers used ken to mean range of vision (Out of ken we were ere the Countesse came from the feast. -- Thomas Nashe) or sight ('Tis double death to drown in ken of shore. -- Shakespeare). Today, however, ken rarely suggests literal sight. Rather, ken nowadays almost always implies a range of comprehension, understanding, or knowledge.

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polymorphous: having, assuming, or passing through many or various forms, stages, or the like.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 28, 2011 is:

catastrophe • \kuh-TASS-truh-fee\  • noun
1 a : a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth b : a violent usually destructive natural event (as a supernova) 2 : utter failure : fiasco

Examples:
The party was a catastrophe; the band didn't show up, the food was awful, and a sudden rain shower sent the guests running for cover.

The democratization of economics owes much to the financial crisis that first hit in 2007. That ongoing catastrophe, which few economists predicted, tarnished the profession's reputation, prompting some to look elsewhere for answers. -- From an article by Stephen Mihm in The New York Times Magazine, December 19, 2010

Did you know?
When English speakers first borrowed the Greek word catastrophe in the 1500s, they used it for the conclusion or final event of a dramatic work, especially of a tragedy. By the early 1600s, catastrophe was being used more generally of any generally unhappy conclusion or disastrous or ruinous end. By the 18th century, catastrophe had come to denote truly devastating events, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Finally, it came to be applied to things that are only figuratively catastrophic -- burnt dinners, lost luggage, really bad movies, etc.

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jamboree: a carousal; any noisy merrymaking.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 27, 2011 is:

axiomatic • \ak-see-uh-MAT-ik\  • adjective
1 : taken for granted : self-evident 2 : based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms

Examples:
The axiomatic concept of supply and demand dictates that if there is a decrease in the amount of a commodity available and an increase in the public need for it, then the price of that commodity will go up.

It has long been unspoken but axiomatic among those who live in the stratospheric world of the membership rolls of Augusta National Golf Club: people desperate to join never will, regardless of how hard they may try. -- From an article by Larry Dorman in the New York Times, April 9, 2011

Did you know?
An axiom is a principle widely accepted on the basis of its intrinsic merit or one regarded as self-evidently true. A statement that is axiomatic therefore, is one against which few people would argue. Axiomatic entered English from Middle Greek axiōmatikos, and axiom derived via Latin from Greek axiōma (something worthy) and axios (worthy). The word axiom can also refer to a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference. Such axioms are often employed in discussions of philosophy, as well as in mathematics and geometry (where they are sometimes called postulates).

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 26, 2011 is:

ensconce • \in-SKAHNSS\  • verb
1 : to place or hide securely : conceal 2 : to establish or settle firmly, comfortably, or snugly

Examples:
Rather than ensconce the discouraging news in falsely hopeful language, the doctor imparted the diagnosis in a clear, straightforward manner.

From Wednesday morning through Sunday night, nine men and one woman along with assorted helpers and facilitators will be sequestered on the 15th floor of The Westin hotel in Indianapolis. Ensconced in a luxury bunker, they won't come out for good until they've decided the 68 NCAA men's tournament teams, seeded them and placed them in the brackets. -- From an article by Rusty Miller for the Associated Press, March 7, 2011

Did you know?
You might think of sconce as a type of candleholder or lamp, but the word can also refer to a defensive fortification, usually one made of earth. Originally, then, a person who was ensconced was enclosed in or concealed by such a structure, out of harm's way. The earliest writer to apply the verb ensconce with the general sense of hide was William Shakespeare. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, the character Falstaff, hoping to avoid detection when he is surprised during an amorous moment with Mrs. Ford, says She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras. (An arras is a tapestry or wall hanging.)

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anneal: to toughen or temper.

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marginalia: notes in the margin of a book, manuscript, or letter.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 25, 2011 is:

vitrine • \vuh-TREEN\  • noun
: a glass showcase or cabinet especially for displaying fine wares or specimens

Examples:
The tiny antiquarian bookshop has some books that are available for browsing, but the rarer and more valuable volumes are housed in the tall vitrines that line the walls.

A weathered wooden child's chair is stacked atop its twin, with two bright pink plastic bowls stacked on the top seat. In an adjacent vitrine sits a miniature version of this assemblage, the tiny pieces placed in the center of a bright orange square of velvet. -- From an art exhibit review by Jessica Baran in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis, MO), February 24, 2011

Did you know?
The history of vitrine is clear as glass. It comes to English by way of the Old French word vitre, meaning pane of glass, from Latin vitrum, meaning glass. Vitrum has contributed a number of words to the English language besides vitrine. Vitreous (resembling glass or relating to, derived from, or consisting of glass) is the most common of these. Vitrify (to convert or become converted into glass or into a glassy substance by heat and fusion) is another. A much rarer vitrum word -- and one that also entered English by way of vitre -- is vitrailed, meaning fitted with stained glass.

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yin: a principle in Chinese philosophy associated with negative, dark, and feminine attributes.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 24, 2011 is:

aspersion • \uh-SPER-zhun\  • noun
1 : a sprinkling with water especially in religious ceremonies 2 a : a false or misleading charge meant to harm someone's reputation b : the act of making such a charge : defamation

Examples:
Melissa believed that Roger had unjustly cast aspersions on the quality of her research.

There's always, for whoever is president, the opponents, the people on the other side who cast aspersions that they may not even believe themselves…. -- Laura Bush in an interview on Fox News Network, May 16, 2010

Did you know?
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall / To make this contract grow. In this line from Shakespeare's The Tempest, aspersion literally refers to a sprinkling of rain, but figuratively means blessing. Shakespeare's use is true to the heritage of the term. Aspersion comes from the Latin word aspersus, itself a derivative of the verb aspergere, which means to sprinkle or to scatter. When aspersion first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to the type of sprinklings (for instance, of holy water) that occur in religious ceremonies. But English speakers noted that splatterings can soil and stain, and by the end of the century aspersion was also being used for reports that stain or tarnish a reputation.

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peregrinate: to travel or journey, especially to walk on foot.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 23, 2011 is:

meme • \MEEM\  • noun
: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

Examples:
It is easy to fall prey to a meme that has been perpetuated by the mass media even without any evidence to support the original idea.

The Internet-to-print projects usually happen swiftly, Boog noted, so the books are released before the Internet 'meme' - a concept that spreads online - loses the interest of fickle fans. -- From an article by Joseph Lord in The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), April 3, 2011

Did you know?
In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, British scientist Richard Dawkins defended his newly coined word meme, which he defined as a unit of cultural transmission. Having first considered, then rejected, mimeme, he wrote: ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene.’ I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate ‘mimeme’ to ‘meme.’ (The suitable Greek root was mim-, meaning mime or mimic. The English suffix -eme indicates a distinctive unit of language structure, as in “grapheme,” “lexeme,” and “phoneme.”) Meme itself, like any good meme, caught on fairly quickly, spreading from person to person as it established itself in the language.

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