Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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 2, 2026 is:





prescience • \PRESH-ee-unss\ • noun

Prescience is a formal word used to refer to the ability to see or anticipate what will or might happen in the future.

// He predicted the public's response to the proposed legislation with remarkable prescience.

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Examples:

"... novelists have always faced technological and social upheaval. They have mostly addressed it in one of two ways. The first is to imagine an altered future with the prescience of science fiction; Mary Shelley's warning that humans are not always in control of their creations is, if anything, even more resonant today than when Frankenstein was first published in 1818." — Jessi Jezewska Stevens, The Dial, 2 Dec. 2025





Did you know?

If you know the origin of science you already know half the story of prescience. Science comes from the Latin verb sciō, scīre, "to know," also source of such words as conscience, conscious, and omniscience. Prescience has as its ancestor a word that attached prae-, a predecessor of pre-, to this root to make praescire, meaning "to know beforehand."

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.