Carolina Institute for Faith & Culture

Blandishment: Word of the Day Blandishment, as much as it sounds like some sort of condiment, actually means “flattering speech designed to persuade or coax,” or “the act of persuasion […]

The Mirriam-Webster Word of the Day for this Sunday is billingsgate. It defines the word as “coarsely abusive language.” The website says the following: “From its beginnings during the time […]

From www.grammar.com, we get today’s word of the day, dupe. Dupe can be either a noun or a verb. As a noun, it means “a person who is easily fooled” […]

Many people who have read Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, published in 1725, are familiar with book 1, in which Lemuel Gulliver encounters the Lilliputians, those cute, vicious little people. But […]

Crepuscular is a really interesting sounding word. It sounds like it should be related to shell fish or human musculature or something like that. But this word, the New York […]

The Mirriam-Webster Word of the Day is officious, which means “volunteering one’s services where they are neither asked nor needed” or “meddlesome.” Mirriam-Webster provides a second definition, “informal, unofficial,” but […]

Chutzpah (or chutzpa) [hƱt spǝ] means “unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall” or “audacity, nerve.” According to etymonline.com, the word enters the language in 1892 “from Yiddish khutspe “impudence, gall,” from […]

Mirriam-Webster’s Word of the Day today is gambit, which originally is a term in chess. Mirriam-Webster says, “In 1656, a chess handbook was published that was said to have almost […]

The adjective protean (pronounced pro-ti-ǝn) means “readily assuming different forms or characters; extremely variable,” or “changeable in shape or form, as an amoeba,” according to www.dictionary.com. It can also mean […]

The word today is potentate, which means “a person who possesses great power, as a sovereign, monarch, or ruler.” According to www.etymonline.com, it enters the language “c. 1400, from Old […]