Larry's Pretty Good Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 8, 2026 is:

meme • \MEEM\  • noun

Meme is used popularly to refer to an amusing or interesting picture, video, etc. that is spread widely online. It can also refer to an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.

// Though the two friends now live on opposite coasts, they still keep in touch constantly, texting and sending their favorite funny cat memes back and forth.

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Examples:

“Shane Hinton, a meteorologist for CBS News Miami, posted a Facebook meme earlier this week that showed a 70-degree spread between Miami’s near record 85 and Minneapolis’ 15.” — Howard Cohen, The Miami Herald, 5 Dec. 2025

Did you know?

In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, British scientist Richard Dawkins defended his newly coined word meme, which he defined as “a unit of cultural transmission.” Having first considered, then rejected, mimeme, he wrote: “Mimeme comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like gene.” (The suitable Greek root was mim-, meaning “mime” or “mimic.” The English suffix -eme indicates a distinctive unit of language structure, as in grapheme, lexeme, and phoneme.) Like any good meme, meme caught on and evolved, eventually developing the meaning known to anyone who spends time online, where it’s most often used to refer to any one of those silly captioned photos that the Internet can’t seem to get enough of.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 7, 2026 is:

imbue • \im-BYOO\  • verb

Imbue has two common meanings: "to permeate or influence as if by dyeing" and "to provide with something freely or naturally." In the second use it is usually used with with.

// A deep sense of history imbues the artist's work.

// The children were imbued with a passion for nature by their parents, both biologists.

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Examples:

"Aged cachaça, like fine whiskey, derives its complexity from the barrels it's matured in. There are dozens of different Brazilian woods cachaça can be aged in, and each imbues the spirit with its distinct flavor, resulting in varieties that are more floral or herbal, nutty or woody, savory or spiced." — Rebekah Peppler, The New York Times, 5 Dec. 2025

Did you know?

Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. Someone's voice can be imbued with pride, for example, or a photograph might be imbued with a sense of melancholy. In the past imbue was also used synonymously with imbrue, an obscure word meaning "to drench or stain," but the two words are likely unrelated. Imbue comes from the Latin verb imbuere, meaning "to dye, wet, or moisten," while imbrue has been traced back through Anglo-French and Old French to the Latin verb bibere, meaning "to drink."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 4, 2026 is:

diaphanous • \dye-AF-uh-nus\  • adjective

Diaphanous is a formal word used to describe fabric of a texture so fine that one can see through it. Diaphanous is also sometimes used figuratively to describe something characterized by extreme delicacy of form.

// The bride looked radiant in her floor-length gown and diaphanous veil.

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Examples:

"With a bright pattern set on flaming crimson and a diaphanous petticoat underneath, the dress fits her perfectly." — David Wingrave, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

What do the words diaphanous, epiphany, fancy, phenomenon, sycophant, emphasis, and phase all have in common? The Greek word phaínein shows more clearly in some of these words than in others, but it underlies all of them. The groundwork for diaphanous was laid when phaínein (meaning "to bring to light, cause to appear") was combined with the prefix dia- (meaning "through"). From that pairing came the Greek diaphanḗs ("transparent"), parent of the Medieval Latin diaphanus, which is the direct ancestor of the English word.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 3, 2026 is:

hornswoggle • \HORN-swah-gul\  • verb

To hornswoggle someone is to trick or deceive them.

// I think we were hornswoggled by that magician.

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Examples:

"Netflix users have been warned to look out for an insidious, AI-powered email scam that looks nearly indistinguishable from the real deal. ... If you have been already hornswoggled by such a scheme, Netflix advises changing your password and reaching out to your bank." — Ben Cost, The New York Post, 3 Mar. 2025

Did you know?

Hornswoggle is a slang word of some considerable mystery, at least where its etymology is concerned. The word appears to have originated in the southern United States in the early 19th century. The earliest known written record comes from an 1829 issue of The Virginia Literary Magazine in its glossary of Americanisms. The magazine states that hornswoggle comes from Kentucky, and that its oddness matches nicely with other 19th-century Americanisms, such as sockdolager, absquatulate, callithump, slumgullion, and skedaddle. While the exact point at which hornswoggle entered our language, and the way in which it was formed, may remain unknown, it is a charming addition to our language, joining bamboozle and honeyfuggle as colorful ways to say "to deceive."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 1, 2026 is:

gargantuan • \gahr-GAN-chuh-wun\  • adjective

Gargantuan describes something that is very large in size or amount; something gargantuan is, in other words, gigantic.

// Bigfoot is said to be a creature of gargantuan proportions.

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Examples:

“By the late 1870s, he was asked to take part in the gargantuan task of evaluating and cataloguing the results of the five-year Challenger expedition—an ambitious British global research voyage, the first ever dedicated purely to science. [Ernst] Haeckel’s contribution to the final 50-volume Report of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger took a decade to complete and spanned three volumes, 2,750 pages, and 130 plates.” — Michael Benson, Nanocosmos: Journeys in Electron Space, 2025

Did you know?

Gargantua is the name of a giant king in François Rabelais's 16th-century satiric novel Gargantua, the second part of a five-volume series about the giant and his son Pantagruel. All of the details of Gargantua's life befit a giant. He rides a colossal mare whose tail switches so violently that it fells the entire forest of Orleans. He has an enormous appetite, such that in one incident he inadvertently swallows five pilgrims while eating a salad. The scale of everything connected with Gargantua led to the adjective gargantuan, which since William Shakespeare's time has been used for anything of tremendous size or volume.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 31, 2026 is:

short shrift • \SHORT-SHRIFT\  • noun

Short shrift means “little or no attention or thought” or “quick work.” In religious use it refers to barely adequate time for confession before execution.

// Certain neighborhoods have received short shrift from the city government.

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Examples:

“[Charlie] Caplinger echoed the concerns of many speakers at the meeting, with charter captains saying the recreational fishing industry’s economic contributions were being given short shrift.” — Mike Smith, NOLA.com (New Orleans, Louisiana), 6 Nov. 2025

Did you know?

We’ve got a confession to make, but we’ll keep it brief: while it’s technically possible to make “long shrift” of something, you’re unlikely to find long shrift in our dictionary anytime soon. Short shrift, on the other hand, has been keeping it real—real terse, that is—for centuries. The earliest known use of the phrase comes from Shakespeare’s play Richard III, in which Lord Hastings, who has been condemned by King Richard to be beheaded, is told by Sir Richard Ratcliffe to “Make a short shrift” as the king “longs to see your head.” Although now archaic, the noun shrift was understood in Shakespeare’s time to refer to the confession or absolution of sins, so “make a short shrift” meant, quite literally, “keep your confession short.” However, since at least the 19th century the phrase has been used figuratively to refer to a small or inadequate amount of time or attention given to something.