Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 15, 2026 is:

cloying • \KLOY-ing\  • adjective

Cloying is used disapprovingly to describe something that is too sweet, pleasant, or sentimental.

// She finds most romantic comedies cloying and predictable.

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Examples:

“Images of her came to me often, as did snatches of songs in her repertoire, which she sang to me as lullabies. ... What I couldn't quite summon, despite what I thought of as my keen smell memory, was her fragrance. As a kid, I had never liked it. Bellodgia was heavy, spicy, and floral; when my mother would lean over me to comb my hair ... the cloying rose and carnation combined with her tugging on my scalp always threatened to give me a headache. Still ... I missed that fragrance now.” — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 10 July 2025

Did you know?

The history of cloying isn't sweet—it's tough as nails. Cloying comes from the verb cloy, which in Middle English meant “to hinder or seriously injure”; its source is an Anglo-French word meaning “to prick (a horse) with a nail in shoeing.” English cloy too carried this farriery meaning (a farrier being a person who shoes horses) in the early 16th century, but it also had a general sense relating to clogging and stuffing, and in particular to overloading with especially sweet or rich food. From there quickly arose meanings of cloy still in use today: “to supply with an unwanted or distasteful excess usually of something originally pleasing” and “to be or become insipid or distasteful usually through an excess of an originally pleasurable quality (such as sweetness).” The adjective cloying, which describes things that are too sweet, pleasant, or sentimental, was doing the job it does today by the end of the 16th century.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 14, 2026 is:

delegate • \DEL-uh-gayt\  • verb

To delegate something (such as control, responsibility, authority, or a job or duty) is to trust someone else with it.

// Those tasks can be delegated to someone else.

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Examples:

“In practice, principals shuttle back and forth, sometimes multiple times a day, or divide their schedule between mornings and afternoons, or alternate full days at each school. When they're off-site, they must formally delegate authority, but parents and teachers say it's not always clear who holds decision-making power.” — Isabel Teotonio, The Toronto Star, 1 Dec. 2025

Did you know?

To delegate is to literally or figuratively send someone else in your place, an idea that is reflected in the word's origin: it is a descendant of the Latin word lēgāre, meaning “to send as an envoy” (a messenger or representative). The noun delegate, which refers to a person who is chosen or elected to vote or act for others, arrived in English in the 14th century, while the verb didn't make its entrée till the early 16th century. (Note that the verb rhymes with relegate while the noun rhymes with delicate.) Some distant cousins of the word delegate that also trace back to lēgāre include legacy, colleague, relegate, and legate, “an official representative sent to a foreign country.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 13, 2026 is:

umbrage • \UM-brij\  • noun

Umbrage refers to a feeling of being offended by what someone has said or done. It is often used in the phrase “take umbrage.”

// Some listeners took umbrage at the podcaster's remarks about the event.

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Examples:

“The one item on offer was considered to be so good that the chef took umbrage at being asked for mustard.” — The Irish Times, 31 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

Umbrage is a word born in the shadows. Its ultimate source (and that of umbrella) is Latin umbra, meaning “shade, shadow,” and when it was first used in the 15th century it referred to exactly that. But figurative use followed relatively quickly. Shakespeare wrote of Hamlet that “his semblable is his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more,” and by the 17th century this meaning of “vague suggestion; hint,” had been joined by other uses, including the “feeling of resentment or offense” heard today in such sentences as “many took umbrage at the speaker's tasteless jokes.” The word's early literal use is not often encountered, though it does live on in literature: for example, in her 1849 novel, Charlotte Brontë describes how the titular Shirley would relax “at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 12, 2026 is:

brackish • \BRACK-ish\  • adjective

Brackish, meaning “somewhat salty,” usually describes water or bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, and estuaries. The word can also mean “not appealing to the taste” or “repulsive.”

// The river becomes brackish as we approach the tidemark.

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Examples:

“The blood-testing organs don't measure water levels but rather the concentration of salt, whose healthy range lies at almost exactly the same concentration as that of the brackish intertidal water in which vertebrates first evolved (which is about one-third as salty as seawater).” — Dan Samorodnitsky, Wired, 28 Sept. 2025

Did you know?

When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant “salty,” as did its Dutch parent brac. Then, as now, brackish was used to describe water that was a mixture of saltwater and freshwater, such as one encounters where a river meets the sea. Since that time, however, brackish has developed the additional meanings of “unpalatable” and “repulsive,” presumably because of the oozy, mucky, and sometimes stinky (or stinkyish, if you prefer)—not just salty—qualities of coastal estuaries and swamps.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 11, 2026 is:

paradox • \PAIR-uh-dahks\  • noun

Paradox refers to something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible. It can also refer to someone who does two seemingly opposite things or who has qualities that are opposite; to a statement that seems to say two opposite things but that nonetheless may be true; or to the use of such statements in writing or speech.

// It is a paradox that computers need time-consuming updates so often, since they are meant to save people time.

// As an actor, she's a paradox—she loves being in the spotlight but fiercely guards her privacy.

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Examples:

“In some ways, I think the idea of a ‘serious lady' might even be a paradox, if to be serious means to understand the world according to one's own precepts, experiences, and observations, and to behave in a way that reflects this. A lady, on the other hand, follows rules that others have devised. How, then, can a ‘serious lady' be anything other than a very peculiar and odd creature—which the women in this book certainly are?” — Sheila Heti, from the introduction to Two Serious Ladies: A Novel by Jane Bowles, 2025 (orig. 1943)

Did you know?

The ancient Greeks were well aware that a paradox—the saying “less is more,” for example—can take us outside our usual way of thinking. They combined the prefix para-, “beyond” or “outside of,” with the verb dokein, “to think,” forming paradoxos, an adjective meaning “contrary to expectation.” Latin speakers used that word as the basis for a noun paradoxum, which English speakers borrowed during the 1500s as paradox.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 10, 2026 is:

collude • \kuh-LOOD\  • verb

To collude is to work with others secretly especially in order to do something illegal or dishonest. Collude is used as a synonym of conspire and plot.

// She is accused of colluding with known criminals.

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Examples:

"Two lawsuits filed in April accuse hundreds of insurers of colluding to drop policyholders and force them onto the plan, which offers limited policies that typically cost more." — Laurence Darmiento, The Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2025

Did you know?

Colluding—working secretly with others to do something deceitful or illegal—is not a game, but you'd never know it if you took your cues on the meaning of collude solely from its etymology. Collude comes from the Latin verb colludere, which in turn combines the prefix com-, meaning "together," and the verb ludere, "to play." Ludere, in turn, comes from ludus, meaning "game, play, or sport." (Ludus is also the source of the adjective ludicrous and the noun interlude). Collude has a related noun—collusion—which carries the specific meaning "secret agreement or cooperation." Despite their playful history, collude and collusion have always suggested illicit trickery rather than good-natured fun.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 9, 2026 is:

innocuous • \ih-NAH-kyuh-wus\  • adjective

Innocuous describes either something that is not likely to bother or offend anyone (as in “an innocuous comment”), or something that causes no injury, or is otherwise considered harmless (as in “an innocuous prank”).

// The reporter asked what seemed like an innocuous question, but it prompted the candidate to storm off, abruptly ending the press conference.

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Examples:

“Strong solar storms can be dangerous for astronauts in space, and can cause problems for GPS systems and satellites. ... But solar storms can also have more innocuous consequences on Earth, such as supercharged displays of the northern lights.” — Denise Chow, NBC News (online), May 15, 2025

Did you know?

Innocuous is rooted in a lack of harm: it comes from the Latin adjective innocuus, which was formed by combining the negative prefix in- with a form of the verb nocēre, meaning “to harm” or “to hurt.” It first appeared in print in the early 1600s with the meaning “harmless; causing no injury,” as in “an innocuous gas,” and soon developed a second, metaphorical sense used to describe something that does not offend or cause hurt feelings, as in “an innocuous comment.” Innocent followed the same trajectory centuries before; its negative in- prefix joined with Latin nocent-, nocens, meaning “wicked,” which also comes from nocēre. This is not to say that nocēre has only contributed words that semantically negate the harm inherent in the root: nocēre is also the source of noxious and nuisance.

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

gumbo • \GUM-boh\  • noun

Gumbo refers to a soup thickened with okra pods or filé and containing meat or seafoods and usually vegetables. The word is also used figuratively to refer to a mixture or blend of something.

// The reputation of the family's gumbo guaranteed them an invitation to any and all neighborhood potlucks.

// She draws her artistic inspiration from the city's rich gumbo of musical styles.

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Examples:

“Gram and Aunt Rachel got a big bucket of gumbo on the way home ... and we ate it out of the container with plastic spoons in front of the clubhouse TV, watching episode after episode of Jeopardy!, none of us wagering any answers. Gull sat in my lap and picked out the okra.” — Tennessee Hill, Girls with Long Shadows: A Novel, 2025

Did you know?

Gumbo refers to an aromatic soup of the Creole cuisine of Louisiana, combining African, Indigenous North American, and European elements. It takes its name from the American French word gombo, which in turn is of Bantu origin and related to the Umbundu word ochinggômbo, meaning “okra.” Okra usually plays a starring role in gumbo as a thickener (unless the soup is thickened by filé, powdered young sassafras leaves) alongside the holy trinity of celery, onion, and bell pepper, and any number of additional ingredients, from seafood (shrimp, crab, or oysters) to meat (chicken, sausage, duck, or game) to leafy greens. The variety of ingredients and ways to prepare the dish eventually led to the figurative sense of gumbo referring to a variety, mixture, or mélange of things, as in “a gumbo of ideas.”

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

eminently • \EM-uh-nunt-lee\  • adverb

Eminently is used as a synonym of very and means "to a high degree."

// Our team came up with an eminently sensible plan to reduce waste.

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Examples:

"This was jazz of the highest order—challenging, yet accessible, eminently entertaining and arrestingly beautiful. Goosebumps were felt." — T'Cha Dunlevy, The Gazette (Montreal, Canada), 8 July 2025

Did you know?

When British physician Tobias Venner wrote in 1620 of houses "somewhat eminently situated," he meant that the houses were located at an elevated site—they were literally in a high place. That use has since slipped into obsolescence, as has the word's use to mean "conspicuously"—a sense that reflects its Latin root, ēminēre, which means "to stick out" or "protrude." All three meanings date to the 17th century, but today's figurative sense of "notably" or "very" is the only one now regularly encountered.

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

loll • \LAHL\  • verb

Loll most often means “to droop or hang loosely.” It can also mean “to act or move in a relaxed or lazy manner.”

// We're counting down the days until the weather will be warm enough again to laze and loll by the pool.

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Examples:

“Just across the highway at Año Nuevo State Park, elephant seals loll lazily on the beach.” — Scott Clark, quoted in Saveur, 3 Apr. 2025

Did you know?

Despite appearances, loll isn't an exaggerated version of the abbreviation LOL. It isn't even related to laughing. Instead, it is about hanging out, both literally and figuratively. Like another relaxing verb, lull (“to cause to rest or sleep”), it probably originated as an imitation of the soft sounds people make when resting or trying to soothe someone else to sleep. In addition to meaning “to hang loosely,” as in “a dog with its tongue lolling out,” loll shares meaning with a number of l verbs that are all about taking it easy, including loaf, lounge, and laze.