Word of the Day
: March 27, 2020cordial
playWhat It Means
1 a : showing or marked by warm and often hearty friendliness, favor, or approval : politely pleasant and friendly
b : sincerely or deeply felt
2 : tending to revive, cheer, or invigorate
cordial in Context
Even though we disagree with one another on many points, we have long maintained a cordial relationship.
"Last Wednesday, three members of the Taste Test team had lunch at All City Grille…. The experience was wholly pleasant. The dining room is modern and clean, the student servers were cordial and efficient, and the food was well-prepared and well-priced." — Dan Kane, The Repository (Canton, Ohio), 12 Feb. 2020
Did You Know?
Cordial shares the Latin root cor with concord (meaning "harmony") and discord (meaning "conflict"). Cor means "heart," and each of these cor descendants has something to do with the heart, at least figuratively. Concord, which comes from con- (meaning "together" or "with") plus cor, suggests that one heart is with another. Discord combines the prefix dis- (meaning "apart") with cor, and it implies that hearts are apart. When cordial was first used in the 14th century, it literally meant "of or relating to the heart," but this sense has not been in use since the 17th century. Today anything that is cordial, be it a friendly welcome, a compliment, or an agreement, comes from the heart in a figurative sense.
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Name That Antonym
What antonym of cordial can also describe a person's gray or white hair?
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