Today's Word

Coruscant

[KOR-uh-skuhnt]

Definition

(adjective) A “coruscant” is a person who is brilliant, dazzling, and full of energy. They possess a lively and quick-witted intellect that shines brightly, often leaving others in awe of their mental agility and sparkling personality.

Example

The debate team was led by a coruscant speaker whose arguments were so eloquent and well-crafted that the opposing team struggled to keep up with her quick thinking and sharp wit.

Fun Fact

In astronomy, “coruscant” is used to describe a celestial object, such as a star, that appears to be shimmering or twinkling rapidly. This effect is caused by the Earth’s atmosphere refracting the light from the object, making it appear to flicker or dance in the night sky. The word “coruscant” comes from the Latin word “coruscare,” which means “to flash, glitter, or sparkle.” In science fiction, “Coruscant” is also the name of a fictional planet in the Star Wars universe, known for its dazzling, city-covered surface that gleams like a jewel in space.

Previous Words

Vaunt

Today's Word

Vaunt

VAWNT

Definition

(verb/noun) To boast about or praise something excessively, especially one’s own achievements or qualities.

Example

The company’s much-vaunted innovation strategy had produced exactly one product in three years — a fact the press release somehow failed to mention.

Word Origin

Vaunt derives from the Old French vanter, meaning “to boast,” from the Late Latin vanitare — from vanus, meaning “empty” or “vain.” The same root gives us vanity, vain, and vanish — all words built around emptiness or the illusion of substance. It entered English in the 15th century, used to describe the kind of boasting that draws attention to itself precisely because what lies beneath it cannot support the weight of the claim being made.

Fun Fact

The most celebrated vaunter in English literature is almost certainly Sir John Falstaff — Shakespeare’s magnificently self-aggrandizing knight whose vaunting bears no relationship whatsoever to his actual military record. In Henry IV Part 1, Falstaff claims to have fought off eleven men in buckram single-handedly, a number that grows with each telling until Prince Hal quietly deflates the entire account. Shakespeare used Falstaff’s vaunting to make a precise point about the relationship between self-promotion and reality — that the volume of a boast is often inversely proportional to the substance behind it, a principle that has lost none of its relevance in the six centuries since.

READ MORE...

Coruscant

Definition

Example

Previous Words

Vaunt

Vaunt

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Vaunt

Hauteur

Acrimonious

Bathetic

Welter