Today's Word

Surreptitious

sur-up-TISH-us

Definition

(adjective) Kept secret, especially because it would not be approved of; stealthy or secretive.

Example

She cast a surreptitious glance at her phone during the meeting.

Word Origin

Late Middle English: from Latin “surreptitius,” from “surripere” meaning “to take away secretly,” from “sub-” (secretly) + “rapere” (to seize).

Fun Fact

Surreptitious behavior isn’t necessarily illegal or immoral—it’s just done on the sly because it wouldn’t be approved. Surreptitious glances at your watch during boring presentations, surreptitious snacking before dinner, surreptitious phone checks during conversations—these minor sneaky acts define modern life. The word shares its Latin root with “rapture” through the idea of seizing, though surreptitious seizing happens quietly rather than ecstatically. Spy novels love the word for describing covert operations, but everyday surreptitious acts are far more common than espionage, making it the perfect word for socially awkward secret-keeping.

Previous Words

Dearth

Today's Word

Dearth

DURTH

Definition

(noun) A severe lack or scarcity of something; an inadequate supply that falls critically short of what is needed.

Example

The report revealed a striking dearth of qualified candidates — not because the field lacked talent, but because decades of underfunding had quietly hollowed out the pipeline entirely.

Word Origin

Dearth derives from the Old English dēorþ, meaning “dearness” or “costliness” — rooted in dēore, meaning “dear” or “precious.” The original sense was economic: something so scarce it had become expensive, its rarity driving up its price. It entered Middle English as derthe, used specifically to describe famines and food shortages, before broadening into its modern sense of any critical scarcity. The word carries its economic origin quietly — the idea that what is scarce becomes dear, and what is dear reveals a dearth.

Fun Fact

The Great Famine of 1845 to 1852 remains history’s most devastating modern example of dearth — a catastrophic scarcity of food that killed approximately one million people in Ireland and drove another million to emigrate within the first two years alone. What made it particularly devastating was not merely the failure of the potato crop but the simultaneous export of other food from Ireland to England throughout the famine, a political decision that transformed a natural disaster into a human one. Ireland’s population, which stood at around eight million before the famine, had fallen to just over four million by the early 20th century — a dearth whose demographic consequences lasted well over a century.

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Surreptitious

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Previous Words

Dearth

Dearth

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Dearth

Propitious

Surfeit

Malediction

Vacillate