Today's Word

Meretricious

mer-uh-TRISH-us

Definition

(adjective) Attractive in a showy but deceptive or worthless way.

Example

The ad campaign was full of meretricious claims that didn’t match the product.

Fun Fact

Meretricious comes from the Latin word for prostitute (meretrix) and originally referred to superficial allure with no substance. Today, it’s used in critiques of marketing, fashion, or social media culture, where style often outweighs truth. It’s a biting word for anything that tries too hard to impress without backing it up.

Previous Words

Veracity

Today's Word

Veracity

veh-RAS-ih-tee

Definition

(noun) The quality of being truthful, accurate, and habitually disposed toward honesty in all matters.

Example

The journalist’s veracity was never questioned — not because she never made mistakes, but because she corrected them faster than anyone else in the room.

Word Origin

Veracity derives from the Medieval Latin veracitas, meaning “truthfulness,” from verax — “speaking the truth” — rooted in verus, meaning “true.” The same root gives us verify, verdict, verity, and aver — a family of words all built around truth as something that can be confirmed and declared. It entered English in the 17th century, used to describe not a single truthful act but a consistent, habitual disposition toward accuracy — the difference between telling the truth once and being someone who simply cannot do otherwise.

Fun Fact

The philosophical distinction between truth and veracity has occupied thinkers since antiquity — and the gap between them is larger than it first appears. A person can tell the truth accidentally, or strategically, or selectively. Veracity implies something more demanding: a character trait so ingrained that deception becomes structurally difficult. Kant argued that veracity was an absolute moral duty — that lying was wrong even to protect someone from harm — a position so extreme that philosophers have been arguing against it ever since. The most famous counterexample remains the murderer at the door asking where your friend is hiding, which has kept ethics seminars occupied for two centuries without producing a consensus.

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Meretricious

Definition

Example

Previous Words

Veracity

Veracity

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Veracity

Inchoate

Abate

Pugnacious

Vociferous