The Words of the Week - Sept. 11
Dictionary lookups from court, the internet, and an art heist
‘Mistrial’
Mistrial has been trending since a murder case prominent in the national news ended in a mistrial on Friday.
Lindsay Clancy’s murder case, which ended in a mistrial on Friday, leaves behind larger questions about how the health care system treats women with serious mental illness during and after pregnancy and important lessons about where that system falls short.
—Sarah Rahal and Jason Laughlin, The Boston Globe, 8 Sept. 2026
A mistrial is a trial that has no legal effect with regard to one or more of the charges brought against the defendant because of some serious error or prejudicial misconduct in the proceedings, or a hung jury.
‘Brain rot’
Lookups for brain rot were high this week.
Every decade or so, adults discover that young people are consuming media that corrupts their minds—and a moral panic ensues. Comic books were going to produce a generation of delinquents. Television would make children into couch potatoes. Video games and rap music would inspire them to do violent stuff. … Now the panic surrounds “brain rot”—the state of being entranced by an infinite stream of nonsensical TikToks and Instagram reels.
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We define brain rot as slang for “a perceived decline in cognitive function attributed to consuming too much shallow or addictive online content.” Brain rot can also be used to refer to the shallow or addictive content itself. While newly prominent, the term is not itself new, and can be found in sporadic use since at least the mid-1800s. The earliest known example comes, notably, from Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 book Walden: “While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” As a term in specific reference to digital media production and consumption, however, brain rot has been in use since the 2000s.
‘Small potatoes’
Lookups for small potatoes have been higher than usual since President Trump used the term to characterize the war with Iran.
On Friday, Trump downplayed the ongoing military conflict with Iran as “small potatoes.”
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We define small potatoes as an informal term for “someone or something that is not important or impressive.” It has been used with this meaning since at least the early 1800s.
‘Brazen’
Brazen was trending this week, possibly in connection with news of an art heist in France.
Almost a year after the brazen Louvre heist, thieves targeted a Renoir museum that was formerly his last home in the south of France. Two people entered the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-Sur-Mer, a small town in southern France, early Tuesday and stole three artworks, the authorities said.
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The oldest meaning of brazen, which traces back to the Old English word for “brass,” bræs, is a literal one: “made of brass” (you might on occasion encounter “brazen cups” or “brazen doors” in something you’re reading). Over the centuries, brazen picked up a number of figurative senses stemming from the physical properties of brass, from its strength to its sound to its color. But it’s the hardness of brass that led eventually to the now common “shameless” meaning of brazen. A face of brass, or a “brazen face” (a phrase recorded in writing as early as the late 1500s) is one that is more or less immobile, betraying no sign of shame of wrongdoing. Today, brazen is used not just for people who are openly shameless or disrespectful, but for openly shameless or disrespectful behavior, as in “a brazen disregard for the rules.”
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Tantivy’
As we, of the northern hemisphere at least, rush tantivy toward autumn, the adverb tantivy, meaning “at a gallop” (used both literally and figuratively) is a word worth knowing. Tantivy is also used as a noun to refer a rapid gallop, again either literally or figuratively. Although its precise origin isn’t known, one theory has it that tantivy represents the sound of a galloping horse’s hooves. The noun also has a second meaning, “the blare of a trumpet or horn.” This is probably due to confusion with tantara, a word for the sound of a trumpet that came about as an imitation of that sound. Both tantivy and tantara were historically used during foxhunts; in the heat of the chase, people may have jumbled the two.
Hark forward!—Tantivy!—
The woodland resounds
With shouts of the sportsmen
To cheer on the hounds!
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