Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 25, 2025 is:
perdition • \per-DISH-un\ • noun
Perdition refers to hell, or to the state of being in hell forever as punishment after death—in other words, damnation. It is usually used figuratively.
// Dante’s Inferno details the main character’s journey through perdition.
// It’s this kind of selfishness that leads down the road to perdition.
See the entry >
Examples:
“AC/DC has been criticized for sticking to its straightforward musical formula for more than 50 staggering years, but there’s little denying the appeal of the group’s adrenalized and reliable approach. As Angus Young stated in the liner notes for a reissue of ‘The Razor’s Edge,’ ‘AC/DC equals power. That’s the basic idea.’ That energetic jolt is sometimes the perfect means to raise spirits and spread actual joy, even coming from a band offering the cartoonish imagery of plastic horns and travel down the road to perdition.” — Jeff Elbel, The Chicago Sun-Times, 25 May 2025
Did you know?
Perdition is a word that gives a darn, and then some. It was borrowed into English in the 14th century from the Anglo-French noun perdiciun and ultimately comes from the Latin verb perdere, meaning “to destroy.” Among the earliest meanings of perdition was, appropriately, “utter destruction,” as when Shakespeare wrote of the “perdition of the Turkish fleet” in Othello. This sense, while itself not utterly destroyed, doesn’t see much use anymore; perdition is today used almost exclusively for eternal damnation or the place where such destruction of the soul occurs.
--------
2:05
--------
2:05
amalgamate
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 24, 2025 is:
amalgamate • \uh-MAL-guh-mayt\ • verb
Amalgamate is a formal verb meaning "to unite (two or more things) into one thing."
// The school district has proposed amalgamating the two high schools.
See the entry >
Examples:
"Ten years ago, there were 339 credit unions in Ireland, but that is down to 187, according to Central Bank figures. Part of the rationale for credit unions to amalgamate to create larger units is so they can expand their mortgage and business lending." — Charlie Weston, The Irish Independent, 28 Aug. 2025
Did you know?
Today, one can amalgamate—that is, combine into one—any two (or more) things, such as hip-hop and country music, for example. The origins of amalgamate, however, have more to do with heavy metal. Amalgamate comes from the Medieval Latin verb amalgamāre, meaning "to combine (a metal) with mercury." It’s been part of English since the 1500s, its introduction closely trailing that of the noun amalgam (from the Medieval Latin amalgama), which in its oldest use means "a mixture of mercury and another metal." (In dentistry, amalgams combining liquid mercury with powders containing silver, tin, and other metals are sometimes used for filling holes in teeth). The word amalgamate can be used either technically, implying the creation of an alloy of mercury, or more generally for the formation of any compound or combined entity.
--------
2:03
--------
2:03
desolate
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 23, 2025 is:
desolate • \DESS-uh-lut\ • adjective
Desolate describes places that lack people, plants, animals, etc., that make people feel welcome in a place; desolate places are, in other words, deserted or barren. Desolate can also mean “joyless” or “gloomy.”
// We drove for hours along a desolate stretch of road until finally a lone gas station appeared in the middle of nowhere.
See the entry >
Examples:
“... the great novelists were my guide, and none more so than my grandfather. I learnt from him complexity of motivation, a willingness to take risks with storytelling, and the vital importance of landscape. Like Thomas Hardy, my grandfather was able to make his readers see what he wrote, whether it be the beauty of Rivendell or the desolate landscapes of Mordor.” — Simon Tolkien, LitHub.com, 29 May 2025
Did you know?
The word desolate hasn’t strayed far from its Latin roots: its earliest meaning of “deserted” mirrors that of its Latin source dēsōlātus, which comes from the verb dēsōlāre, meaning “to leave all alone; forsake; empty of inhabitants.” That word’s root is sōlus, meaning “lone; acting without a partner; lonely; deserted,” source too of the “lonely” words sole, soliloquy, solitary, solitude, and solo. Desolate also functions as a verb (its last syllable rhymes with wait rather than what) with its most common meanings being “to lay waste” and “to make wretched; to make someone deeply dejected or distressed.”
--------
2:00
--------
2:00
metonymy
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 22, 2025 is:
metonymy • \muh-TAH-nuh-mee\ • noun
Metonymy refers to a figure of speech in which a word that is associated with something is used to refer to the thing itself, as when crown is used to mean “king” or “queen.”
// Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood are common examples of metonymy.
See the entry >
Examples:
“The stick used to command the crowd is called a ‘brigadier.’ A brigadier is usually used to describe one who commands a military brigade, yes, but does not a stage manager lead his theater brigade? That’s the idea, according to organizers. It was a term used so often to refer to a stick-wielding stage manager that, through the magic of metonymy, the stick itself is now referred to as a brigadier.” — Emma Bowman, NPR, 6 Aug. 2024
Did you know?
When Mark Antony asks the people of Rome to lend him their ears in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar he is asking them to listen to him, not to literally allow him to borrow their ears. It’s a classic example of the rhetorical device known as metonymy, which comes to English (via Latin) from the Greek word of the same meaning, metōnymia: the use of a word that is associated with something to refer to the thing itself. Metonymy often appears in news articles and headlines, as when journalists use the term crown to refer to a king or queen. Another common example is the use of an author’s name to refer to works written by that person, as in “They are studying Austen.” Metonymy is closely related to synecdoche, which is a figure of speech in which the word for a part of something is used to refer to the thing itself (as in “need some extra hands for the project”), or less commonly, the word for a thing itself is used to refer to part of that thing (as when society denotes “high society”).
--------
2:26
--------
2:26
bloviate
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2025 is:
bloviate • \BLOH-vee-ayt\ • verb
To bloviate is to speak or write in an arrogant tone and with more words than are necessary.
// The podcaster tends to bloviate endlessly on topics about which he is not particularly knowledgeable.
See the entry >
Examples:
"While other characters bloviate about their lives, Barbara is a much more internal character, her quietness making her seem all the more an outsider in her hometown." — Kristy Puchko, Mashable.com, 13 June 2025
Did you know?
Warren G. Harding is often linked to the word bloviate, but to him the word wasn't insulting; it simply meant "to spend time idly." Harding used the word often in that "hanging around" sense, but during his tenure as the 29th U.S. President (1921-23), he became associated with the "verbose" sense of bloviate, as his speeches tended to be on the long-winded side. Although he is sometimes credited with having coined the word, it's more likely that Harding picked it up from local slang while hanging around with his boyhood buddies in Ohio in the late 1800s. The term likely comes from a combination of the word blow plus the suffix -ate.
España