Start each day with the Word of the Day in your inbox!

Word of the Day

Word of the day

aver

[ uh-vur ] [ əˈvɜr ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

verb (used with object)

to assert or affirm with confidence; declare in a positive or peremptory manner.

learn about the english language

More about aver

Aver “to assert with confidence” derives via Middle English and Middle French from Medieval Latin advērāre, roughly “to make true,” from Latin vērus “true.” The ultimate source of vērus is a Proto-Indo-European root of the same meaning that has an unexpected cognate in English: warlock. The war- part of warlock means “faith” as well as “agreement, covenant” in Old English, and the original meaning of warlock (Old English wǣrloga) was “oathbreaker.” Latin v frequently corresponds to English w, which is evident in other pairs of cognates from the two languages, such as Latin ventus and English wind, Latin via and English way, and Latin verbum and English word. Aver was first recorded in English in the late 14th century. Learn some synonyms for aver by checking out Synonym of the Day.

how is aver used?

Ms. Sidibe’s aunt is Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a founder of Ms. Magazine; a famous portrait from 1971, of Ms. Pitman Hughes and Gloria Steinem raising their fists in a Black Power salute, hung in her sitting room, where Ms. Sidibe passed it every day on her way to school, and Ms. Steinem was a regular guest. While Ms. Sidibe averred that she is “a link on a chain of powerful women,” her own steely self-confidence, she said, wasn’t nurtured by her activist relatives so much as a survival skill she taught herself in the bruising theater of elementary school.

Penelope Green, “Gabourey Sidibe Doesn’t Want to Talk About Her Body,” New York Times, May 1, 2017

Ours is called the Age of Science for a reason, and that reason is reason itself, which in recent decades has come under fire by cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists who assert that humans are irrational by nature and by postmodernists who aver that reason is a hegemonic weapon of patriarchal oppression. Balderdash! Call it “factiness,” the quality of seeming to be factual when it is not.

Michael Shermer, “Is Truth an Outdated Concept?” Scientific American, March 1, 2018

Listen to the podcast

aver

Play Podcast Stop Podcast
00:00/00:00
quiz icon
WHAT'S YOUR WORD IQ?
Think you're a word wizard? Try our word quiz, and prove it!
TAKE THE QUIZ
arrows pointing up and down
SYNONYM OF THE DAY
Double your word knowledge with the Synonym of the Day!
SEE TODAY'S SYNONYM
Word of the Day Calendar

Word of the day

yakka

[ yak-uh ] [ ˈyæk ə ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

noun

work, especially hard work.

learn about the english language

More about yakka

Yakka “work” is a term in Australian slang that used to be spelled variously as yacker or yakker, among other options. Because Australian English is a variety of English that is non-rhotic, dropping the r sound after a vowel, the original spelling of yakka may have changed to reflect this r-dropping tendency. While the ultimate source of yakka is obscure, the most popular hypothesis is a derivation from yaga “to work,” a word from the Yagara language. Yagara, also known as Turrbal, is a language native to Queensland, the northeasternmost state of Australia, and belongs to the Pama–Nyungan language family, as do three-quarters of all aboriginal languages of Australia. Yakka was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.

how is yakka used?

Beyond the stereotyped “G’day” (hello) of souvenir T-shirts and “Crocodile Dundee” movies, are many words rich in tradition that define the Australian identity and give continuity to the variety of voices and experiences that shaped the country’s history. Assuming you pass the tests and move to Australia, you’ll probably find yourself flat out like a lizard drinking, that’s extremely busy, from the hard yakka or labour of your new job.

Jonathan Standing, “Aussie slang can leave you a few roos loose,” Reuters, January 21, 2007

In Adelaide there may be periods when the ball darts around and the bowlers move to attacking lengths to induce batters into coming forward, and other times when seamers will have to plug away and do some hard yakka, which England’s are capable of doing. The path to victory is to bang away with accurate seam bowlers.

Mark Ramprakash, “England blew it in Brisbane and must get the bowling lineup right in Adelaide,” The Guardian, December 14, 2021

Listen to the podcast

yakka

Play Podcast Stop Podcast
00:00/00:00
Word of the Day Calendar

Word of the day

gnomon

[ noh-mon ] [ ˈnoʊ mɒn ] Show IPA Phonetic Respelling

noun

the raised part of a sundial that casts the shadow; a style.

learn about the english language

More about gnomon

Gnomon “the raised part of a sundial that casts the shadow” is a borrowing by way of Latin gnōmōn from Ancient Greek gnṓmōn “interpreter, discerner.” From there, gnṓmōn is derived from the verb gignṓskein (stem gnō-) “to know, perceive, judge,” and the stem gnō- also appears in other Ancient Greek-origin terms such as agnostic (literally “without knowledge”) and diagnosis (literally “means of discernment”). Because Ancient Greek and Latin are distantly related, Latin contains numerous words related to knowledge that also feature the telltale gn- element, including cognitive (“learned”), incognito (“unknown”), ignorant (“not knowing”), and recognize (“know again”). Gnomon was first recorded in English in the 1540s.

how is gnomon used?

The pork clock was excavated in the 1760s from the ruins of the Villa dei Papiri, a grand country house in the Roman town of Herculaneum. Early scholars were quick to realize that the unprepossessing object was a sundial, though some experts argued that it was modeled after a water jug rather than a ham …. The original clock is missing its gnomon, the part of a sundial that casts a shadow, but an 18th-century museum curator described it having one in the shape of a pig’s tail…

Traci Watson, “Ancient Sundial Shaped Like Ham Was Roman Pocket Watch,” National Geographic, January 19, 2017

Though not exactly a clock, the Samrat Yantra—or supreme instrument—is the largest sundial in the world, measuring more than 88 feet in height. Made of marble and local stone with a gnomon that stands at 90 feet, this time-keeping attraction can tell accurate time, with just a two-second margin of error, day or night.

“Travel Picks: Top 10 clocks around the world,” Reuters, April 5, 2013

Listen to the podcast

gnomon

Play Podcast Stop Podcast
00:00/00:00
Word of the Day Calendar
Word of the Day Calendar