Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 10, 2010 is:

effulgence • \ih-FULL-junss\  • noun
: radiant splendor : brilliance

Example sentence:
The effulgence of the moon in the clear midnight sky provided enough light to help us safely make our way home.

Did you know?
Apparently, English speakers first took a shine to "effulgence" in the middle of the 17th century; that's when the word was first used in print in our language. "Effulgence" derives from the Latin verb "fulgēre," which means "to shine." "Fulgēre" is also the root of "fulgent," a synonym of "radiant" that English speakers have used since the 15th century. Another related word, "refulgence," is about 30 years older than "effulgence." "Refulgence" carries a meaning similar to "effulgence" but sometimes goes further by implying reflectivity, as in "the refulgence of the knight’s gleaming armor."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 09, 2010 is:

kapellmeister • \kuh-PELL-mye-ster\  • noun
: the director of a choir or orchestra

Example sentence:
From 1717 to 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach served as the Kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen of the Holy Roman Empire.

Did you know?
As you may have guessed, "Kapellmeister" originated as a German word -- and in fact, even in English it is often (though not always) used for the director of a German choir. "Kapelle" once meant "choir" in German, and "Meister" is the German word for "master." The Latin "magister" is an ancestor of both "Meister" and "master," as well as of our "maestro," meaning "an eminent composer or conductor." "Kapelle" comes from "cappella," the Medieval Latin word for "chapel." As it happens, we also borrowed "Kapelle" into English, first to refer to the choir or orchestra of a royal or papal chapel, and later to describe any orchestra. "Kapellmeister" is used somewhat more frequently than "Kapelle" in current English, though neither word is especially common.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 08, 2010 is:

enthrall • \in-THRAWL\  • verb
1 : to hold in or reduce to slavery *2 : to hold spellbound : charm

Example sentence:
"For 40 years, the Romero Quartet has enthralled audiences with superb classical guitar playing." (David Stabler, The Oregonian [Portland Oregon], January 8, 2010)

Did you know?
In Middle English, "enthrallen" meant "to hold in thrall." "Thrall" then, as now, meant "bondage" or "slavery"; it comes from an Old Norse word, "thraell," which is probably related to an Old High German word for servant. In the 16th century, the first known figurative use of "enthrall" appeared in the following advice, translated from a Latin text by Thomas Newton: "A man should not . . . enthrall his credit and honour to Harlots." But we rarely use even this sense of mental or moral enslavement anymore. Today the word is often used in its participle form, "enthralled," which sometimes means "temporarily spellbound" ("we listened, enthralled, to the old woman's oral history"), but more often suggests a state of being generally captivated, delighted, or taken by some particular thing.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 07, 2010 is:

parsnip • \PAHR-snip\  • noun
: a Eurasian biennial herb (Pastinaca sativa) of the carrot family with large pinnate leaves and yellow flowers that is cultivated for its long tapered edible root which is cooked as a vegetable; also : the root

Example sentence:
"A sweet tender treat awaits my taste buds whenever I prepare parsnips. Parsnips are truly one of my favorite vegetables that I first enjoyed as a young child." (Dianne Lamb, Brattleboro Reformer, April 25, 2009)

Did you know?
The word "parsnip" was borrowed into Middle English in the 14th century as a modification of the Old French word "pasnaie," itself derived from the Latin noun "pastinaca," meaning "parsnip" or "carrot." The scientific name for the parsnip, "Pastinaca sativa," still reflects this history. "Pastinaca," in turn, traces back to "pastinum," a Latin word for a small gardening tool used to make holes in the ground for the insertion of plants, seeds, or bulbs. "Parsnip" may also remind you of the name of another edible root, "turnip," and there's a possible explanation for the resemblance. The Middle English spelling of "parsnip" ("passenep") may have been influenced by "nepe," the old form of "turnip."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 06, 2010 is:

comptroller • \kun-TROH-ler\  • noun
1 : a royal-household official who examines and supervises expenditures 2 : a public official who audits government accounts and sometimes supervises expenditures *3 : the chief accounting officer of a business enterprise or an institution (as a college)

Example sentence:
The comptroller verified and approved the financial information of the grant proposal.

Did you know?
If you think "comptroller" looks like a mistaken spelling of "controller," you're partially right. Today, "comptroller" is an established word that shares one of its meanings (sense 3) with "controller." The term did originate as a misspelling, however. Around the 15th century, Middle English speakers altered the spelling of "conterroller" (meaning "controller," from the Middle French "contrerolleur") under the influence of the Middle French word "compte" ("account"). The resulting word, "comptroller," has attracted criticism over the years. Grammarian Henry Fowler condemned "comptroller" as "not merely archaic, but erroneous" in 1920, and a lexicographical column from 1931 agreed that "comptroller" is "erroneous and should not be accepted as correct." Nevertheless, such modern institutions as colleges and governments continue to have comptrollers. "Comptrollership" occasionally turns up as well.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 05, 2010 is:

alow • \uh-LOH\  • adverb
: below

Example sentence:
"Then, with all her sails, light and heavy, and studding sails on each side, alow and aloft, she is the most glorious moving object in the world." (Noel Perrin, The New York Times, May 30, 1982)

Did you know?
In nautical use, "alow" means "in or to a lower part of the vessel," indicating the deck or the area of the rigging closest to the deck, or below-deck as opposed to above-deck. The opposite of "alow" in this sense is "aloft," used to indicate a higher part of the vessel. Yet, while we are still likely to encounter "aloft," in both nautical and non-nautical use, "alow" has become something of a rarity. When encountered, it is usually found in the combination "alow and aloft." This phrase literally refers to the upper and lower parts of a ship or its rigging, but it can also be used to mean "completely" or "throughout" -- similar to the more familiar "high and low."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 04, 2010 is:

vulnerary • \VUL-nuh-rair-ee\  • adjective
: used for or useful in healing wounds

Example sentence:
Aloe vera is a vulnerary plant whose extract is widely used to soothe and heal burns.

Did you know?
In Latin, "vulnus" means "wound." You might think, then, that the English adjective "vulnerary" would mean "wounding" or "causing a wound" -- and, indeed, "vulnerary" has been used that way, along with two obsolete adjectives, "vulnerative" and "vulnific." But for the lasting and current use of "vulnerary," we took our cue from the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. In his Natural History, he used the Latin adjective "vulnerarius" to describe a plaster, or dressing, for healing wounds. And that's fine -- the suffix "-ary" merely indicates that there is a connection, which, in this case, is to wounds. (As you may have already suspected, "vulnerable" is related; it comes from the Latin verb "vulnerare," which means "to wound.")

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 03, 2010 is:

elicit • \ih-LISS-it\  • verb
1 : to draw forth or bring out (something latent or potential) *2 : to call forth or draw out (as information or a response)

Example sentence:
The announcement of the total amount of money that the charity walk raised for the children’s hospital elicited many cheers from the crowd.

Did you know?
"Elicit" derives from the past participle of the Latin verb "elicere," formed by combining the prefix "e-" with the verb "lacere," meaning "to entice by charm or attraction." It is not related to its near-homophone, the adjective "illicit" -- that word, meaning "unlawful," traces back to another Latin verb, "licēre," meaning "to be permitted." Nor is "elicit" related to the verb "solicit," even though it sounds like it should be. "Solicit" derives from Latin "sollicitare" ("to disturb"), formed by combining the adjective "sollus," meaning "whole," with the past participle of the verb "ciēre," meaning "to move."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 02, 2010 is:

evanescent • \ev-uh-NESS-unt\  • adjective
: tending to vanish like vapor

Example sentence:
"Dance is the most evanescent of the arts, evaporating into memory the instant it's completed." (Jordan Levin, The Miami Herald, November 13, 2008)

Did you know?
The fragile, airy quality of things evanescent reflects the etymology of the word "evanescent" itself. It derives from a form of the Latin verb "evanescere," which means "to evaporate" or "to vanish." Given the similarity in spelling between the two words, you might expect "evaporate" to come from the same Latin root, but it actually grew out of another steamy Latin root, "evaporare."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 01, 2010 is:

raj • \RAHJ\  • noun
*1 : rule; especially often capitalized : the former British rule of the Indian subcontinent 2 : the period of British rule in India

Example sentence:
In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi launched a spectacular and highly successful campaign against the Raj, but despite all such efforts, India did not gain independence from British rule until 1947.

Did you know?
When British trading posts were established in the Indian subcontinent in the 17th century, English speakers were immersed in the rich languages of the region, and Europeans quickly began adopting local words into their own vocabularies. By the end of the 1700s, Hindi contributions to our language ran from "ayah" (a term for a nurse or maid) to "zamindar" (a collector of land taxes or revenues). When English speakers borrowed "raj" around 1800, they used exactly the same spelling and meaning as its Hindi parent (the Hindi word in turn traces to an older term that is related to the Sanskrit word for "king"). Other words of Hindi descent that are now common in English include "chintz," "pundit," "bungalow," "veranda," "seersucker," and "bandanna."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 31, 2010 is:

coeval • \koh-EE-vul\  • adjective
: of the same or equal age, antiquity, or duration

Example sentence:
"How old is this ancient town? One guess: It dates to 2600-2500 B.C. -- more or less coeval with nearby Stonehenge … which may date to 3100 B.C." (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 12, 2007)

Did you know?
"Coeval" comes to English from the Latin word "coaevus," meaning "of the same age." "Coaevus" was formed by combining the "co-" prefix ("in or to the same degree") with Latin "aevum" ("age" or "lifetime"). The root "ev" comes from "aevum," making words such as "longevity," "medieval," and "primeval" all near relations to "coeval." Although "coeval" can technically describe any two or more entities that coexist, it is most typically used to refer to things that have existed together for a very long time (such as galaxies) or that were concurrent with each other in the distant past (parallel historical periods of ancient civilizations, for example).