Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 21, 2026 is:





rigmarole • \RIG-uh-muh-rol\ • noun

Rigmarole refers to a long, complicated, and annoying process, description, etc.

// We went through the rigmarole of installing, registering, and activating the software before we found out it wouldn’t work.

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Examples:

“Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with running. On the one hand, I love it for the mental benefits. My mind always feels clearer after a run and it can be an escape from the rigmarole of life. But on the other hand, it seems that every few years, some mild injury befalls me that slows my momentum, or I move to a new city and lose the routine of running at a time and place.” — Maura Fox, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Sept. 2025





Did you know?

In the Middle Ages, the term Rageman or Ragman referred to a game in which a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse. The roll was called a Ragman roll after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses. By the 16th century, ragman and ragman roll were being used figuratively to mean “a list or catalog.” Both terms fell out of written use, but ragman roll persisted in speech, and in the 18th century it resurfaced in writing as rigmarole, with the meaning “a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements.” In the mid-19th century rigmarole (also spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation) acquired the sense referring to a complex and tedious procedure.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 20, 2026 is:





divulge • \dih-VULJ\ • verb

To divulge something, especially secret or private information, is to make it known.

// Rather than divulge the baby name we’ve chosen, we’re waiting till the little one arrives to make introductions.

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Examples:

“Sun Ra’s agent had called, he said. ... The Arkestra was heading out on tour soon, to Europe, and Sonny wanted the three of us to join him. ... After we’d calmed down, Don divulged the hitch: the tour would take us away for the school year’s last weeks, meaning we would miss exams and also all the end-of-college parties.” — Michael Lowenthal, Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation, 2026





Did you know?

Information divulged is typically secret, or known only to insiders, and it isn’t usually shouted from the rooftops. But when divulge first entered English in the 15th century, it did so as a synonym of proclaim: divulging involved declaring or announcing something to the public, a duty of town criers from Lizard Point to Dunnet Head. The word’s source is the Latin verb vulgare, “to make known,” which traces ultimately back to the Latin noun vulgus, meaning “common people” or “mob.” While nowadays divulge can presumably involve blabbing to the rabble, the word usually implies a more careful and considered approach to sharing sensitive information.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 19, 2026 is:





balmy • \BAH-mee\ • adjective

Balmy is an adjective that is often used to describe weather that is warm, calm, and pleasant. It can also be used to describe someone or something (such as an idea) that is foolish or irrational.

// After a long, eight-hour drive, we were rewarded with a mild, balmy evening at our vacation spot on the shores of Lake Erie.

// Despite being a devout Green Bay fan, she finds the idea of attending games in head-to-toe yellow and green body paint to be a bit balmy.

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Examples:

“Everyone is encouraged to bring chairs, snacks and coolers, and remember the flashlights for the walk back to the parking lot. Leashed dogs are welcome, too. These evenings are all about enjoying good music on a balmy summer night.” — The Sun (Elizabethtown, New York), 18 June 2026





Did you know?

Aromatic ointments and fragrances are the bomb. They are also, literally, balms: healing substances and soothing scents with the power to ease both mind and body. The original balm, what Latin-speakers referred to as balsamum, was the oleoresin of a species of balsam tree. In Anglo-French, balsamum became basme and baume, spellings which entered Middle English and later became balm. Balm eventually begat the adjective balmy, used to describe things with a balm’s comforting, calming qualities, as when Shakespeare’s Othello speaks of “balmy slumbers.” Today balmy is typically used to describe the weather—balmy breezes, balmy temperatures, balmy spring afternoons, et al—conditions that are neither too hot nor too cold, but just right—Goldilocks conditions, even.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 18, 2026 is:





oxymoron • \ahk-sih-MOR-ahn\ • noun

An oxymoron is a combination of words that have opposite or very different meanings, such as "cruel kindness" or "open secret." In broader usage, oxymoron can also refer to something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements.

// Some of Shakespeare's most famous plays are filled with oxymorons such as "loving hate" and "tragical mirth."

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Examples:

"Even the most environmentally aware beauty editors I know (perhaps that’s an oxymoron, given the amount of product we have to test for our jobs…) use sheet masks on a weekly basis, and the trend is showing no signs of slowing." — Melanie Macleod, Hello Magazine, 15 Apr. 2026





Did you know?

The ancient Greeks exhaustively classified the elements of rhetoric, or effective speech and writing, and gave the name oxymoron—literally "pointed foolishness"—to the deliberate juxtaposing of seemingly contradictory words. The roots of oxymoron, oxys meaning "sharp" or "keen," and mōros meaning "foolish," are nearly antonyms themselves, making oxymoron nicely self-descriptive. Oxymoron originally applied to a meaningful paradox condensed into a couple of words, as in "lonely crowd" or "sweet sorrow." Today, however, what is commonly cited as an oxymoron is often simply a curiosity of language, where one or both elements have multiple meanings (shrimp in "jumbo shrimp" doesn't mean "small"; it refers to a sea creature), or a phrase whose elements seem antithetical in spirit, such as "organized chaos."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 17, 2026 is:





lackadaisical • \lak-uh-DAY-zih-kul\ • adjective

Something or someone described as lackadaisical is lacking in interest, enthusiasm, or zest.

// Feeling particularly lackadaisical in the summer heat, they lazily tossed a ball back and forth.

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Examples:

"The defense was lackadaisical at best, while the offense wasn't much better." — Shreyas Laddha, The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, New York), 7 Feb. 2026





Did you know?

We're too enthusiastic about the lexicon to be lackadaisical about words, but lackadaisical itself is rooted in the sort of sorrow that can put a damper on one's passion for vocabulary expansion. When folks living from the late 17th to the late 19th century had one of those days when nothing goes right, they could cry "Lackaday!" to express their sorrow and disappointment as a shortened form of the expression "alack the day." (Alack is an interjection used to express sorrow or regret.) By the mid-1700s, the adjective lackadaisical had been formed to describe such weary and exasperated folks, as well as their half-hearted doings and sayings. Today the word has lost some of its dreariness and most often describes the languid and lazy.