Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 20, 2008 is:

gravid • \GRAV-id\  • adjective
*1 : pregnant 2 : distended with or full of eggs

Example sentence:
“The film is about the world of mixed martial arts, a subject gravid with possibilities.” (Allen Barra, The New York Sun, April 29, 2008)

Did you know?
"Gravid" comes from Latin "gravis," meaning “heavy.” It can refer to a female who is literally pregnant, and it also has the figurative meanings of "pregnant”: “full or teeming” and “meaningful.” Thus, a writer may be gravid with ideas as she sits down to write; a cloud may be gravid with rain; or a speaker may make a gravid pause before announcing his remarkable findings.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2008 is:

deportment • \dih-PORT-munt\  • noun
: the manner in which one conducts oneself : behavior

Example sentence:
The school expects students to dress in proper attire and maintain a respectful level of deportment throughout the day.

Did you know?
"Deportment" evolved from the verb "deport," meaning "to behave especially in accord with a code," which in turn came to us through Middle French from Latin “deportare,” meaning "to carry away." (You may also know "deport" as a verb meaning "to send out of the country"; that sense is newer and is derived directly from Latin “deportare.”) "Deportment" can simply refer to one's demeanor, or it can refer to behavior formed by breeding or training and often conforming to conventional rules of propriety: "Are you not gratified that I am so rapidly gaining correct ideas of female propriety and sedate deportment?" wrote 17-year-old Emily Dickinson to her brother Austin.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 18, 2008 is:

blithesome • \BLYTHE-sum\  • adj
: gay, merry

Example sentence:
In The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day, Mark Twain's Laura, who had been struck by love, wondered why she had never before noticed "how blithesome the world was."

Did you know?
"Blithesome" comes from "blithe," a word that has been a part of English since before the 12th century. "Blithe" can mean "casual" and "heedless" as well as "joyful" and "lighthearted," but "blithesome" obviously makes use of only the "joyful, lighthearted" sense. "Blithesome" didn't show up in print in English until 1724, and is now relatively uncommon, but you'll find it in the works of such authors as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 17, 2008 is:

prehension • \pree-HEN-shun\  • noun
*1 : the act of taking hold, seizing, or grasping 2 : mental understanding : comprehension 3 : apprehension by the senses

Example sentence:
The new surgery claims to offer an increase in hand prehension and successful use of the hand after a nerve transplant.

Did you know?
It's easy to grasp the origins of "prehension" -- it descends from the Latin verb "prehendere," which means "to seize” or “to grasp." Other descendants of "prehendere" in English include "apprehend," "comprehend" ("to grasp the nature or significance of"), "prehensile" ("adapted for seizing or grasping"), "prison," "reprise," and "reprisal." Even the English word "get" comes to us from the same ancient root that led to the Latin "prehendere."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2008 is:

effigy • \EFF-uh-jee\  • noun
: an image or representation especially of a person; especially : a crude figure representing a hated person.

Example sentence:
A giant effigy is set ablaze at the climax of the annual Burning Man festival in Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

Did you know?
An earlier sense of “effigy” is “a likeness of a person shaped out of stone or other materials,” so it’s not surprising to learn that “effigy” derives from the Latin verb “fingere,” which means “to shape.” “Fingere” is the common ancestor of a number of other English nouns that name things you can shape. A “fiction” is a story you shape with your imagination. “Figments” are shaped by the imagination, too; they’re something you imagine or make up. A “figure” can be a numeral, a shape, or a picture that you shape as you draw or write.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 15, 2008 is:

disabuse • \diss-uh-BYOOZ\  • verb
: to free from error, fallacy, or misconception

Example sentence:
After several months of hard work, Adam was thoroughly disabused of any notion that starting his own business would be an easy endeavor.

Did you know?
We know the verb "abuse" as a word meaning "to misuse," "to mistreat," or "to revile." But when "disabuse" first appeared in the early 17th century, there was a sense of "abuse," now obsolete, that meant "to deceive." Sir Francis Bacon used that sense, for example, when he wrote in 1605, "You are much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the King's power." The prefix "dis-" has the sense of undoing the effect of a verb, so it's not surprising that "disabuse" means "to undeceive." English speakers didn't come up with the idea of joining "dis-" to "abuse" all on their own, however. It was the French who first appended their prefix “dés-” to their verb “abuser.” English "disabuse" is modeled after French “désabuser.”

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2008 is:

circumspect • \SER-kum-spekt\  • adjective
: careful to consider all circumstances and possible consequences : prudent

Example sentence:
“Indications are that school boards, uncertain of what voters will do, have been more circumspect in drafting budgets.” (The Star-Ledger [Newark, New Jersey], April 7, 2008)

Did you know?
"Circumspect," "cautious," "wary," and "chary" all imply looking before you leap, but each puts a unique spin on being careful in the face of risk or danger. "Circumspect," which descends from Latin “circum-” (“around”) and “specere” (“to look”), implies the surveying of all possible consequences before acting or deciding (as in "he is circumspect in business dealings"). "Cautious" suggests fear of danger and the exercise of forethought that it prompts (as in "a cautious driver"). "Wary" emphasizes suspiciousness and alertness in sensing danger and cunning in escaping it (as in "keep a wary eye on the competition"). "Chary" implies a cautious reluctance to give, act, or speak freely (as in "she is chary of signing papers without reading them first").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2008 is:

battue • \bat-TOO\  • noun
: the beating of woods and bushes to flush game; also : a hunt in which this procedure is used

Example sentence:
During the battue, rabbits scampered out of the bushes where they had been hiding and toward the open field.

Did you know?
The battue is a technique practiced by hunters in order to give them a clean shot at their targets. The hunters’ assistants (or sometimes the hunters themselves) rap sticks against trees and bushes in order to scare animals out of the woods and into open space. The practice appears to have originated in France, which is probably why the word “battue,” which debuted in English in the early 19th century, derives from the feminine past participle of the French verb “battre,” meaning “to beat.” Although some hunting traditionalists decried the practice as either cruel or unsportsmanlike when it began, the battue survives today, as does the word for it.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 12, 2008 is:

pantheon • \PAN-thee-ahn\  • noun
1 : a temple dedicated to all the gods; also : the gods of a people *2 : a group of illustrious persons

Example sentence:
With his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the former player joined a pantheon of legends from the sport.

Did you know?
Some of the earliest uses of this word in the English language refer to that most famous Pantheon, the circular domed temple built in Rome more than 19 centuries ago (and still standing). We can easily identify the origins of the temple's name, which the Romans borrowed from the Greek word for a temple honoring all their gods. That Greek word, “pantheion,” combines “pan-” ("all") and “theos” ("god"). Later on, in English, "all the gods" was used to mean just that -- a pantheon could be a collective of gods (as "the Egyptian pantheon"). We stop short of worshiping outstanding men and women as actual gods, of course, but nevertheless, in the 19th century we also began using “pantheon” as a word for any eminent company of the highly venerated.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 11, 2008 is:

cabotage • \KAB-uh-tahzh\  • noun
1 : trade or transport in coastal waters or airspace or between two points within a country *2 : the right to engage in coastal trade or transport

Example sentence:
Some assert that the problem would be resolved if the government would simply relax restrictions on cabotage.

Did you know?
Coastlines were once so important to the French that they came up with a verb to name the act of sailing along a coast: "caboter." That verb gave rise to the French noun “cabotage,” which named trade or transport along a coast. In the 16th century, the French legally limited their lucrative coastal trade, declaring that only French ships could trade in French ports. They called the right to conduct such trading "cabotage" too. Other nations soon embraced both the concept of trade restrictions and the French name for trading rights, and expanded the idea to inland trade as well. Later, English speakers also applied "cabotage" to the rights that allowed domestic airlines to travel within national boundaries but that prevented foreign carriers from doing so.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 10, 2008 is:

jettison • \JET-uh-sun\  • verb
1 : to throw (goods) overboard to lighten a ship or aircraft in distress *2 : discard

Example sentence:
When they realized their plan was not going to work, the committee jettisoned the idea and thought up a new one.

Did you know?
“Jettison” comes from the Anglo-French noun “geteson,” meaning “action of throwing,” and is ultimately from the Latin verb “jactare,” meaning “to throw.” The noun “jettison” (“a voluntary sacrifice of cargo to lighten a ship’s load in time of distress”) entered English in the 15th century; the verb has been with us since the 19th century. The noun is also the source of the word “jetsam” (“jettisoned goods”), which is often paired with “flotsam”(“floating wreckage”). These days you don’t have to be on a sinking ship to jettison something. In addition to literally “throwing overboard,” “jettison” means simply “to get rid of.” You might jettison some old magazines that are cluttering your house. Or you might make a plan but jettison it at the last minute, as in our example sentence.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.