Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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





Pyrrhic • \PEER-ik\ • adjective

The adjective Pyrrhic describes something that is achieved at an excessive cost. It is usually used to describe a victory, a Pyrrhic victory being one that is not worth winning because so much is lost to achieve it.

// The basketball team’s comeback in the final minutes turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory as the star center injured her ankle.

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Examples:

“… where I work, some of my colleagues have suggested that … universities ought to wean themselves off federal grants and become fully fiscally independent; otherwise, they’ll remain too vulnerable to political pressure. This would be a Pyrrhic victory, however, if you believe that robust government funding of research, and of higher education in general, is vital for scientific and social progress.” — David Pozen, The New York Times, 13 Mar. 2026





Did you know?

In 306 B.C.E., at the age of twelve, a youth named Pyrrhus took the throne of Epirus, a country in northwestern Greece. Pyrrhus grew to be an aggressive and quarrelsome king, given to warring with his neighbors. In 280 B.C.E., he brought 25,000 men (and a number of elephants) to southern Italy and defeated the Romans at Heraclea, but only after losing many of his soldiers. A year later, he again suffered heavy casualties at Roman hands in a battle at Ausculum. According to Plutarch, when he was congratulated on those victories Pyrrhus replied, “Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone.” The bloody battles of Pyrrhus didn’t find their way into English in the phrase “Pyrrhic victory” until the 1800s, but once it was established Pyrrhic quickly found occupation as an adjective even independent of the phrase, in such constructions as a “Pyrrhic achievement” and “Pyrrhic success.”

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





wraith • \RAYTH\ • noun

Wraith refers to the spirit of a dead person, or in other words, a ghost.

// The most frightening scene from the movie featured a vengeful wraith creeping slowly up behind the main characters.

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Examples:

"Nearly every storyteller knew the legend of the ghostly woman dressed in white, forever searching for her husband. ... Like all good desert legends, the facts shifted with the wind, but the ending was always the same: if you wandered too far into the dunes, you just might hear the wraith calling to her lost husband." — Candice McDonald, The Alamogordo (New Mexico) Daily News, 30 July 2026





Did you know?

If you see your own double, you're in trouble, at least if you believe old superstitions. The belief that a ghostly twin's appearance portends death is one common to many cultures. In German folklore, such an apparition is called a Doppelgänger (literally, "double goer"); in Scottish lore, it is a wraith. The exact origin of the word wraith is misty, however, and etymologists can only trace it back to the early 16th century—in particular to a 1513 translation of Virgil's Aeneid by Gavin Douglas (the Scotsman used wraith to name apparitions of both the dead and the living). Today, wraith may refer broadly to ghost or specter, or figuratively to something regarded as ghostly or insubstantial, as when New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane referred to an actor's "wraith of a mustache."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 30, 2026 is:





reticent • \RET-uh-sunt\ • adjective

Someone may be described as reticent if they are feeling or showing reluctance, that is, hesitation or unwillingness to do something. Reticent can also describe someone who is reserved, inclined to be silent or uncommunicative about things.

// The team was reticent to spend such a large amount of money, even for an all-star free agent.

// He’s always been reticent about discussing personal matters at work.

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Examples:

“It can be dangerous and difficult for journalists to report in war zones, and armies are understandably reticent to share details of their location, actions, and future plans.” — Rainey Reitman, Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech, 2026





Did you know?

Use of reticent to mean “reluctant”—though it veers away from the word’s Latin origins in the verb reticēre, meaning “to keep silent”—is well established, and there is no reason to be reticent about employing it. In fact, reticent took on its “reluctant” sense a mere 50 years after first appearing in English in the early 19th century with the meaning “inclined to be silent or uncommunicative.” Though some brows may furrow, the development of reticent’s newer meaning has some logic to it: English speakers first used reticent synonymously with reluctant when the context was speech, as in “he was reticent to talk about his past,” keeping the word close to its “silent” beginnings. Eventually, however, exclusive association with speech was abandoned, and one can now be reticent to do anything, even if it’s to admit that language is not immutable.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2026 is:





shindig • \SHIN-dig\ • noun

Shindig is an informal word for a big party.

// Our friends are in town this weekend, so we’re hosting a shindig at our place on Saturday night.

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Examples:

“It’s the night before Halloween, and a couple of hundred young people dressed up as witches or Labubu toys are dancing at a warehouse-style bar beside a subway station in Brooklyn. But this is no ordinary Halloween shindig.” — Michael Koziol, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 3 Nov. 2025





Did you know?

At a glance, shindig appears to combine shin and dig, and thus might seem to suggest a painful kick to the leg—especially when you know that one of the first senses of shindig in English refers to a gathering at which people dance. It is more likely, however, that shindig is an alteration of shindy, which is itself the alteration of another word, shinny, used of a variation of hockey that is played with a curved stick and a ball or block of wood. It’s not entirely clear how the game of shinny gave shindy its first meaning (the “social gathering with dancing” meaning that is also the original meaning of shindig) but shinny remains the most likely origin.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 28, 2026 is:





grotesque • \groh-TESK\ • adjective

Grotesque describes something that is very strange or ugly in a way that is not normal or natural. It can also describe something that is extremely different from what is expected or usual.

// She opted for a scary Halloween costume, complete with a grotesque monster mask.

// Their claim is a grotesque distortion of the facts.

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Examples:

"At the heart of Mary Shelley's 1818 classic Frankenstein and its many pop culture adaptations is the scene in the mad scientist’s lab where Victor Frankenstein, helped by a bolt of lightning, animates the grotesque figure made out of human and animal parts lying on his anatomy table." — Candida Rifkind, The Winnipeg Free Press, 30 May 2026





Did you know?

During the Italian Renaissance, Romans of culture took a great interest in their country's past and began excavating ancient buildings. During their excavations, they uncovered chambers (known in Italian as grotte, "caves," in reference to their cavelike appearance) decorated with fantastical paintings. The Italian word grottesca became the name for a later but similar type of painting or sculpture depicting fantastic combinations of human and animal forms interwoven with unusual fruits and flowers, and by 1561 it had passed through Middle French into the English noun grotesque. The adjective form of grotesque was first used in the early 17th century to describe the decorative art but is now used to describe anything bizarre, incongruous, or unusual.