Fibre and Lace

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 21, 2025 is:

lugubrious • \loo-GOO-bree-us\  • adjective

Lugubrious is a formal word used chiefly to describe something that is very sad especially in an exaggerated or insincere way. The word can also describe something that shows or expresses gloom.

// The movie’s stunning cinematography could not make up for the lugubrious and plodding plot.

// The lugubrious mood of the room shifted when the voices of children playing erupted outside the window.

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Examples:

“On opening night, the audience at St. Petersburg’s Alexandrinsky Theatre were mystified by The Seagull’s neither wholly comic nor wholly tragic tone, hissing and heckling throughout, with Chekhov fleeing from the gallery after the second act. It was only two years later, when Konstantin Stanislavski staged a more lugubrious take on The Seagull at Moscow Art Theatre, that it came to be recognized as a work of pure genius.” — Hayley Maitland, Vogue, 12 Feb. 2025

Did you know?

Everybody hurts, as the classic R.E.M. song goes, and when your day is long and the night is yours alone, lugubrious is a perfect word for describing such sorrowful feelings, or that which inspires them (a lugubrious song, perhaps). That said, if lugubrious strikes you as a tad unusual, no, no, no, you’re not alone. Lugubrious is the sole surviving English offspring of the Latin verb lugēre, meaning “to mourn.” Its closest kin, luctual, an adjective meaning “sad” or “sorrowful,” was laid to rest centuries ago.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 19, 2025 is:

succumb • \suh-KUM\  • verb

Succumbing is about yielding to something: someone who succumbs to a pressure or emotion stops trying to resist that pressure or emotion, and someone who succumbs to an injury or disease dies because of that injury or disease. The word is often followed by to.

// The program aims to help kids develop the strength of character required to avoid succumbing to peer pressure.

// Many patients diagnosed with the disease live healthy lives for years before succumbing to it.

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Examples:

“Occasionally, Dope Girls does succumb to style over substance, as if it doesn’t quite have the confidence to let its big, bold narrative unfold without any bells and whistles.” — Jon O’Brien, The Daily Beast, 8 Aug. 2025

Did you know?

Picture yourself serenely succumbing to sleep. Chances are that in the mental image you’ve just formed, you are in a recumbent position—that is, lying down. The position is baked into the etymology: both succumb and recumbent trace back to cumbere, a Latin verb meaning “to lie down.” While recumbency is typically literal, succumbing is about figuratively lying down before something—yielding to it, ceasing to resist it. The word is most often used with regard to faults and foibles and demise—people succumb to temptation, plants succumb to blight—but the word can be applied in happier contexts too, as when one succumbs to sleep in a quiet spot on a sunny afternoon.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 18, 2025 is:

rationale • \rash-uh-NAL\  • noun

Rationale refers to an explanation or reason for something said or done. It is often used with for, behind, or of.

// City council members who oppose the zoning change should be ready to explain their rationale for voting against it.

// She’s explained the rationale behind her early retirement.

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Examples:

“There is a rationale for commercializing seagrass production, but ecologically sustainable production needs to be at the heart of that business model, and the numbers for doing that simply don’t add up at the moment.” — Richard Lilley, quoted in Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Oct. 2024

Did you know?

If someone asserts that the word rationale refers to a ration of ale, they are wrong, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have an actual rationale (a reason, explanation, or basis) for such a claim. “Rationale looks like the words ration and ale jammed together,” they could offer, and while that is true you’d be justified in responding: “Appearances can be deceiving.” Rationale is a direct borrowing of the Latin word rationale, with which it shares the meaning “an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena.” The Latin rationale comes from a form of the adjective rationalis (“rational”), which traces back to the noun ratio, meaning “reason.” While the Latin ratio is also the forebear of the English noun ration, referring to a share of something, rationale has nothing to do with a tankard (or stein, or even a pony) of beer.