Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 6, 2026 is:





valedictory • \val-uh-DIK-tuh-ree\ • adjective

Valedictory describes something expressing or containing a farewell.

// The valedictory speech given by the department chair moved several faculty members to tears.

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Examples:

“Did I regret not catching a retrospective showing of ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ in a special valedictory program of Sundance sensations from over the years? Perhaps—though not as much as I regretted missing the screening of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s ‘Half Nelson’ (2006). That’s the title that I remember most fondly from my first year at Sundance ...” — Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2026





Did you know?

Valedictory addresses delivered by valedictorians at high school and college graduations are as much a sign of spring in the United States as baseball games and cookouts. Though we don’t know where the first valedictory address was given, we do know that such addresses were an institution at some colleges in the U.S. by the time Noah Webster wrote his famous 1828 dictionary. (We also know that valedictory was used in non-academic settings—mostly churches, and especially in the phrase “valedictory sermon”—from the mid-1600s.) Since a valedictory speech is given at the end of an academic career, it is perfectly in keeping with the meaning of its Latin ancestor, valedīcere, which means “to say goodbye.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 5, 2026 is:





interloper • \in-ter-LOH-per\ • noun

An interloper is a person who intrudes in a place or sphere of activity; they are not wanted or welcome by the other people present.

// Summer residents were regarded as interlopers who lacked a commitment to the town's welfare.

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Examples:

"... my garden is wildlife friendly, sometimes too friendly. By not being overly concerned about interlopers, it welcomes birds and bugs now, including beneficial insects. They help keep things in balance. Not so welcome are rabbits, but they still find their way in." — David Hobson, The Waterloo (Ontario) Region Record, 16 Apr. 2026





Did you know?

If you keep chickens, a coyote loping around in the vicinity of your coop is not welcome. You'd be justified, both semantically and etymologically, in calling such a coyote an interloper. The -loper part of interloper shares an ancestor with the Old English verb hlēapan, meaning "to leap," and the Dutch verb lopen, meaning "to run." (The verb lope does too.) The prefix inter- means "between" or "among," so an interloper is essentially one that leaps in among others (for example, a flock of hens) without an invitation to do so. Interloper made itself at home among English speakers in the late 1500s; the verb interlope, which arrived close in tow in the early 1600s, is likely a back-formation.

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





redolent • \RED-uh-lunt\ • adjective

As a synonym of aromatic, the word redolent can describe something that has a noticeable smell without specifying the scent, but more often it is accompanied by of or with and means “full of a specified fragrance,” as in “redolent with incense.” Redolent can also describe something that causes thoughts or memories of something, as in “music redolent of the 1980s.”

// The late-spring meadow was redolent of wildflowers and petrichor.

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Examples:

“The store is redolent with the aroma of warm chocolate and an ambience evoking the agricultural roots of cacao with plants and growing tunnels.” — Robert Channick, The Chicago Tribune, 13 Feb. 2026





Did you know?

Redolent traces back to the Latin verb olēre (“to smell”) and is a relative of olfactory, “of, relating to, or connected with the sense of smell.” In its earliest English uses in the 15th century, redolent simply meant “having an aroma.” Today, it usually applies to a place or thing permeated with odors. Scent and memory are famously linked, and an extended use of redolent to mean “evocative” or “suggestive” links them again, as in “lollipops redolent of childhood.”

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





engender • \in-JEN-der\ • verb

Engender is a formal word that means “to be the source or cause of something.”

// Our monthly book club meetings started as a way to connect and ended up being a great place to engender unity and build life-long friendships.

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Examples:

“... ‘During a moment defined by anti-intellectualism, escapism, and AI tools that let you skip cognitive work entirely ... intellectual creators are doing something kinda countercultural,’ says Death To Stock’s culture researcher Agus Panzoni. These influencers, who have already built established communities around intellectual pursuits, hold greater meaning and engender more trust ...” — Markiel Magsalin, Vogue, 15 Apr. 2026





Did you know?

A good paragraph about engender will engender understanding in the reader. Like its synonym generate, engender comes from the Latin verb generare, meaning “to generate” or “to beget,” and when the word was first used in the 14th century, engender meant “propagate” or “procreate.” That literal meaning having to do with creating offspring (which generate shared when it was adopted in the early 16th century) was soon joined by the “to cause to exist or develop, to produce” meaning most familiar to us today. Generare didn’t just engender generate and engender; regenerate, degenerate, and generation have the same Latin root. As you might suspect, the list of engender relatives does not end there. Generare comes from the Latin noun genus, meaning “origin” or “kind.” From this source we took our own word genus, plus gender, general, and generic, among other words.

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





engender • \in-JEN-der\ • verb

Engender is a formal word that means “to be the source or cause of something.”

// Our monthly book club meetings started as a way to connect and ended up being a great place to engender unity and build life-long friendships.

See the entry >





Examples:

“... ‘During a moment defined by anti-intellectualism, escapism, and AI tools that let you skip cognitive work entirely ... intellectual creators are doing something kinda countercultural,’ says Death To Stock’s culture researcher Agus Panzoni. These influencers, who have already built established communities around intellectual pursuits, hold greater meaning and engender more trust ...” — Markiel Magsalin, Vogue, 15 April 2026





Did you know?

A good paragraph about engender will engender understanding in the reader. Like its synonym generate, engender comes from the Latin verb generare, meaning “to generate” or “to beget,” and when the word was first used in the 14th century, engender meant “propagate” or “procreate.” That literal meaning having to do with creating offspring (which generate shared when it was adopted in the early 16th century) was soon joined by the “to cause to exist or develop, to produce” meaning most familiar to us today. Generare didn’t just engender generate and engender; regenerate, degenerate, and generation have the same Latin root. As you might suspect, the list of engender relatives does not end there. Generare comes from the Latin noun genus, meaning “origin” or “kind.” From this source we took our own word genus, plus gender, general, and generic, among other words.