Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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





wiseacre • \WYZE-ay-ker\ • noun

A wiseacre is someone who says or does things that are funny but annoying. Wiseacre is an informal and old-fashioned word, as well as a synonym of smart aleck.

// Some wiseacre in the audience kept heckling the comedian throughout the performance.

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Examples:

"In 1982's hit action comedy 48 Hours, a young Eddie Murphy plays a wiseacre criminal on parole in order to help a veteran cop, played by Nick Nolte, solve a case." — Pete Hammond, Deadline, 4 Aug. 2025





Did you know?

Given the spelling and definition of wiseacre, you might guess that the word was formed directly from the familiar adjective wise. And you might be wise to think so—a wiseacre, after all, is someone who thinks or pretends they're wiser (more crafty or knowing) than they are. But you would, alas, also be wrong. Unlike wisecrack and wisenheimer, wiseacre came to English not from wise but from the Middle Dutch word wijssegger, meaning "soothsayer." Wiseacre first appeared in English way back in the 16th century, while all those other wise words appeared centuries later. The etymologies of wiseacre and wise are not completely distinct, however; the ancestors of wiseacre are loosely tied to the same Old English root that gave us wise.

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





adroit • \uh-DROYT\ • adjective

Adroit describes someone or something that has or shows skill, cleverness, or resourcefulness in handling situations.

// We marveled at how adroit the puppeteers were, the marionettes responding to each precise shift of their hands, each flick of their wrists.

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Examples:

“She offers here the most invigorating of performances, technically adroit but also informed by equal measures of artistry and youth, and there’s a humility to her singing, along with a sense of her character’s smallness in the face of life’s travails and machinations …” — Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune, 2 Feb. 2026





Did you know?

The meaning and history of adroit is straightforward, so we’ll get right to the point. English speakers borrowed the word with its meaning from French in the mid 1600s, but the word’s ultimate source is the Latin adjective directus, meaning “straight, direct.” Adroit entered English as a means for describing physically skillful sorts, but it came to be applied to those known for their expertise, cleverness, and resourcefulness too. Today, adroit most often describes things people do especially well.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 2, 2026 is:





fawn • \FAWN\ • verb

To fawn over or on someone (usually someone important or powerful) is to try to get their approval through praise, special attention, or flattery. Fawn is also sometimes used—especially but not exclusively of dogs—to mean “to show affection.”

// Still new to celebrity, the musician blushed at the restaurant staff fawning over her during her recent hometown visit.

// I’d only been gone five minutes but the puppy fawned on me like I’d been away for hours.

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Examples:

“Around my Paddington patch, my ragdoll cat, Runty the Magnificent, is a street celebrity—a magnet for residents and passersby to fawn over and photograph.” — Olivia Stewart, The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, 10 Feb. 2026





Did you know?

Language lovers, rejoice! If you’re the sort of person who fawns over etymology (one of the best sorts of people, in our opinion), then you’ll be glad to know the story of fawn: it comes ultimately from the Old English adjective fægen or fagan, meaning “glad,” by way of the Old English verb fagnian, meaning “to rejoice.” Hooray! But we’re not finished yet, my dear. Note that this fawn is not, despite appearances, related to the noun fawn that refers to a young deer. For that we can thank the Latin noun fetus, meaning “offspring.”

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





shenanigans • \shuh-NAN-ih-gunz\ • plural noun

Shenanigans is an informal word used to refer to activity or behavior that is either not honest or proper, or is mischievous or high-spirited. Its oldest meaning, and the one most likely to be encountered as the singular shenanigan, is “a devious trick used especially for an underhanded purpose.”

// The CEO resigned amid accusations of financial shenanigans and dubious deals.

// The tween sleepover shenanigans involved goofy hats, fake mustaches, and giggles galore but everyone eventually fell asleep.

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Examples:

“Do you remember what it was like to be bored—like really bored? As a Gen Xer, I didn’t grow up scrolling social media or playing endless hours of ‘Minecraft’ to keep me busy; instead, I spent a fair amount of my free time after school crafting the perfect prank call. ... In retrospect, it was time well spent. Well, maybe. Some shenanigans may have gone too far.” — Elana Rabinowitz, The Los Angeles Times, 10 Feb. 2026





Did you know?

Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us. Either way, we call it shenanigans, employing a word whose history is as slippery as the monkey business it names. We know that the word likely first appeared in print in the 1850s in the western United States. But most theories of its genesis assert that it was born in the British Isles, with potential origin words referring to such things as silly behavior, feigned illness, and a sweet rum-beer libation. Although the “underhanded trick” sense of the word is oldest, the most common senses in use now are those referring to the dishonest or improper activity of “political shenanigans,” or to the high-spirited or mischievous behavior of “youthful shenanigans.”

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





genteel • \jen-TEEL\ • adjective

Genteel means “of or relating to people who have high social status” and can be used as a somewhat old-fashioned synonym of aristocratic. It can also be used to describe something with a quietly appealing or polite quality, as in “genteel manners.”

// Their genteel upbringing shaped the way they viewed the world.

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Examples:

“The duo met at Oxford and were briefly bankers. They understand the genteel, often mysterious (at least to Americans) mores of the British upper class ...” — Jacqueline Cutler, The Daily Beast, 28 Jan. 2026





Did you know?

In A History of the Novel (1975), David Freedman wrote of Theodore Dreiser, “Certainly there was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as a man or novelist.” Indeed, few of the many uses of the adjective genteel would seem to apply to the author. When it comes to the use of genteel to describe people or things of or related to the upper class of society, for example, Dreiser doesn’t fit the bill: unlike many of his contemporaries, including Edith Wharton, Dreiser came from poverty. His novels, too, are hardly genteel in the sense of “striving to maintain the appearance of superior or middle-class social status or respectability.” Sister Carrie, his best known work, features a heroine who goes unpunished for her transgressions against conventional sexual morality. In fact, the book so troubled the genteel (“polite”) sensibilities of Dreiser’s publishers that they limited the book’s advertising, and it initially sold fewer than 500 copies. Sister Carrie is now considered a masterpiece, and Dreiser, according to Freedman, “the supreme poet of the squalid” who “felt the terror, the pity, and the beauty underlying the American Dream.”