The Words of the Week - May 16
Dictionary lookups from Mother’s Day, the White House, and the garden
‘Mother’
Mother was a top lookup leading up to and on Mother’s Day.
It is one of Alaska’s favorite Mother’s Day traditions, getting up close and personal with animals that have survived the ice age. All moms get a daisy and free admission Sunday at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, about an hour’s drive north of Anchorage. Once inside they will have the chance to view 75 members of the musk ox herd, including three young calves just getting their feet under them.
—Mark Thiessen, The Associated Press, 11 May 2025
Mother traces back to the Old English word mōdor, which shares an earlier ancestor with Old High German muoter, Latin mater, Greek mētēr, Sanskrit mātṛ. We define several senses of mother including “a female parent” and “source, origin.”
‘Grift’
Grift saw higher than usual lookups this week.
President Donald Trump angrily brushed off ethical concerns about accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar to be used as a new Air Force One, saying only someone “stupid” would turn down such an offer. … While Trump faced criticism during his first term for the way his properties collected money from the government, the last four months have included a flurry of deals around a cryptocurrency firm that has erased centuries-old presidential norms. “Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking,” said Robert Weissman, a co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization. “It makes clear that U.S. foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale.”
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Grift refers to methods of obtaining money or property illicitly that depend primarily on cleverness or deceit and do not usually involve physical force or violence. Grift is thought to perhaps be an alteration of graft, which refers to the acquisition of money or property in dishonest or questionable ways. Both grift and graft have noun and verb forms.
‘Habeas corpus’
Lookups for habeas corpus have been high for a couple of months, but especially high since the Trump administration floated the idea of suspending the constitutional right.
Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president who was answering a question about illegal immigration, told reporters May 9 that the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending the constitutional right that allows people to challenge in court their detention. Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said the Constitution says “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion.”
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The literal meaning of habeas corpus is “you should have the body”—that is, the judge or court should (and must) have any person who is being detained brought forward so that the legality of that person’s detention can be assessed. In United States law, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum (the full name of what habeas corpus typically refers to) is also called “the Great Writ,” and it is not about a person’s guilt or innocence, but about whether custody of that person is lawful under the U.S. Constitution.
‘Equalize’
We were tagged multiple times on social media on Monday alerting us to a potential new coinage by President Donald Trump.
“The rest of the world’s going to have to pay a little bit more, and America’s going to pay a lot less again, because it’s a much smaller population than when you think of the whole world. So, basically, what we’re doing is equalizing. There’s a new word that I came up with, which I think is probably the best word, we’re going to equalize, where we’re all going to pay the same.”
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We define several senses of the verb equalize, including “to make equal” and “to distribute evenly or uniformly.” Equalize has been in use in English since the late 16th century.
‘Eighty-Six’
The verb eighty-six and its numerical variant 86 were both top lookups on Friday morning.
A beach photo is a fairly harmless Instagram post in most circumstances. But that’s not how the Trump Administration is viewing a post by former FBI Director James Comey. The Obama appointee who was fired by Donald Trump in 2017 is being investigated by federal law enforcement after posting a photo of seashells on a beach that appeared to form the shape of “86 47,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday, claiming that the since-deleted post was a call for the assassination of the President.
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We define several senses of eighty-six/86, including “to refuse to serve (a customer),” “to eject or ban (a customer),” and “to remove (an item) from a menu; to no longer offer (an item) to customers.” In addition to these restaurant/bar-specific senses, eighty-six is sometimes used more broadly to mean “to eject, dismiss, or remove (someone)” or “to reject, discontinue, or get rid of (something).” There are many popular but unsubstantiated theories about the origin of eighty-six. The explanation judged most probable according to Merriam-Webster's research is that the word was created in 1930s soda-counter slang as a rhyming slang word for nix, which means “to veto” or “to reject.”
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Dibble’
If you enjoy dabbling in the garden, you are probably—if not indubitably—familiar with the word dibble. And if not we’re here to help on the double. A dibble is a small hand implement used to make holes in the ground for plants, seeds, or bulbs. Dibble is also used as a verb meaning “to plant with a dibble” or “to make holes in (soil) with or as if with a dibble.” (Lacking an actual dibble, you could dibble the dirt with your digit.) Dibble comes from the Middle English word debylle, meaning “dibble.”
