Word of the Day

: July 5, 2018

asseverate

verb uh-SEV-uh-rayt

What It Means

: to affirm or declare positively or earnestly

asseverate in Context

"One can asseverate that a thesaurus is a treasury of words," Felix said ruefully, "but I presume that my own utilization of such costs me some intelligibility."

"A survey conducted by Pacific Community Resources (2003) asseverates drug use among teens is higher than ever today." — Sheila Cordry & Janell D. Wilson, Education, Fall 2004

Did You Know?

In a 2001 essay in The New York Times, novelist Elmore Leonard warned writers against using any verb other than "said" to carry dialogue, describing how an encounter with asseverated once compelled him to stop reading in order to consult a dictionary. We don't think that interruption for dictionary consultation is a bad thing, but we do acknowledge that asseverate is little more than a fancy word meaning "to assert or declare." It was formed in Latin from the prefix ad- ("to, toward") and the verb severare, a relative of the adjective severus, meaning "serious or severe," and has been used in English since the 17th century. Nowadays, asseverate is found mostly in the works of authors long dead. It's also occasionally employed by those who like to show off their vocabularies.