Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2025 is:
heyday • \HAY-day\ • noun
Heyday refers to the period of one's greatest popularity, vigor, or prosperity. It is usually used in the singular.
// In its heyday, the circus was a major form of entertainment for the small town.
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Examples:
"In its heyday, there were more than 200 Chi-Chi's nationwide; the last restaurant closed in 2004." — Nicole Hvidsten, The Minnesota Star Tribune, 1 Oct. 2025
Did you know?
The day in heyday originally had nothing to do with the kind of day that's made up of 24 hours. Heyday was first used in the first half of the 16th century as an extended form of the interjection hey, used since the 13th century to express elation or wonder, as it still often is in phrases like "hey, look at that!" The day part was most likely just an extra syllable tagged on for effect. By the end of the 16th century heyday had developed noun use with the meaning "high spirits," as when Shakespeare's Hamlet tells his mother, "You cannot call it love; for at your age / The heyday in the blood is tame …” It wasn't until the 18th century that the day syllable's resemblance to the word day likely influenced the development of the now-familiar use referring to the period when one's achievement or popularity has reached its zenith.
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peremptory
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2025 is:
peremptory • \puh-REMP-tuh-ree\ • adjective
Peremptory is a formal word used especially in legal contexts to describe an order, command, etc., that requires immediate compliance with no opportunity to show why one should not comply. It is also used disapprovingly to describe someone with an arrogant attitude, or something indicative of such an attitude.
// The soldiers were given a peremptory order to abandon the mission.
// The company’s president tends to adopt a peremptory manner especially at the negotiating table.
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Examples:
“Cook had changed. He seemed restless and preoccupied. There was a peremptory tone, a raw edge in some of his dealings. Perhaps he had started to believe his own celebrity. Or perhaps, showing his age and the long toll of so many rough miles at sea, he had become less tolerant of the hardships and drudgeries of transoceanic sailing.” — Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, 2024
Did you know?
Peremptory comes from the Latin verb perimere, meaning “to take entirely” or “to destroy,” which in turn combines the prefix per- (“throughout” or “thoroughly”) and the verb emere (“to take”). Peremptory implies the removal of one’s option to disagree or contest something, and sometimes suggests an abrupt dictatorial manner combined with an unwillingness to tolerate disobedience or dissent, as in “employees given a peremptory dismissal.” Not to sound peremptory ourselves, but don’t confuse peremptory with the similar-sounding (and related) adjective preemptive, meaning “marked by the seizing of the initiative,” as in “a preemptive attack.”
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abide
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 12, 2025 is:
abide • \uh-BYDE\ • verb
If someone cannot abide someone or something bad, unpleasant, etc., they cannot tolerate or accept that person or thing. Abide can also mean "to accept without objection" and "to remain or continue."
// I just can't abide such blatant dishonesty.
// Residents agree to abide by the dorm's rules.
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Examples:
"If a legal party ... doesn't like a district court ruling, it is free to challenge the decision to a federal appellate court and then the Supreme Court. But while the appeal plays out, the legal party must abide by the ruling." — Will Rogers, The Baltimore Sun, 22 July 2025
Did you know?
Abide has abided in the English language since before the 12th century, picking up along the way several meanings and inflections that are now rare or no longer in use. For instance, one of abide's former meanings was "to stop" and its former past participle was abidden (whereas we now use abided or abode). Today, abide often turns up in the phrase "can't abide" to say that someone cannot tolerate or accept something. The expression abide by, which means "to accept and be guided by (something)," is also common. Related terms include abiding, meaning "continuing for a long time" or "not changing" (as in "an abiding friendship"), abidance ("continuance" or "the act or process of doing what you have been asked or ordered to do"), and abode ("the place where someone lives").
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doughty
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 11, 2025 is:
doughty • \DOW-tee\ • adjective
Doughty is a word with an old-fashioned flair used to describe someone who is brave, strong, and determined.
// The monument celebrates the doughty townspeople who fended off invaders centuries ago.
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Examples:
“The film chooses to render our doughty heroes’ super-costumes as cerulean-blue rollneck sweaters, which is a puzzling choice both aesthetically and practically: knitwear seems literally ill-fitted to derring-do.” — Glen Weldon, NPR, 25 July 2025
Did you know?
There’s no doubt that doughty has persevered in the English language—it’s traceable all the way back to the Old English word dohtig—but how to pronounce it? One might assume that doughty should be pronounced \DAW-tee\, paralleling similarly spelled words like bought and sought, or perhaps with a long o, as in dough. But the vowel sound in doughty is the same as in doubt, and in fact, over the centuries, doughty’s spelling was sometimes confused with that of the now obsolete word doubty (“full of doubt”), which could be the reason we have the pronunciation we use today. The homophonous dowdy (“having a dull or uninteresting appearance”) can also be a source of confusion; an easy way to remember the difference is that you can’t spell doughty without the letters in tough (“physically and emotionally strong”).
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temerity
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 10, 2025 is:
temerity • \tuh-MAIR-uh-tee\ • noun
Temerity is the quality of being confident and unafraid of danger or punishment, especially in a way that seems rude or foolish. Temerity may also refer to a rash or reckless act.
// She had the temerity to ask me for another loan when she had yet to begin repaying the first one.
// The students somehow convinced the principal that a prank of such temerity warranted only three days' detention.
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Examples:
"Once upon a time, music critics were known for being crankier than the average listener. [Taylor] Swift once castigated a writer who'd had the temerity to castigate her, singing, 'Why you gotta be so mean?'" — Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025
Did you know?
When you're feeling saucy, there's no shortage of words in the English language you can use to describe the particular flavor of your metaphorical sauce, from audacity and effrontery to the Yiddish-derived fan favorite chutzpah. If we may be so bold, let us also suggest temerity: it comes from the Latin temere, meaning "recklessly" or "haphazardly," and is good for suggesting boldness even in the face of danger or likely punishment. Temerity is a formal word, rarely used in casual writing or conversation, but provided you have the cheek to flout this convention, you may be thinking "what have I got to lose?"
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