- Today's Word
Abject
AB-jekt
Definition
- (adjective) Extremely bad, degrading, or wretched; experienced or present to the maximum degree.
Example
They lived in abject poverty, with little food or shelter to get through the winter.
Fun Fact
“Abject” comes from the Latin abjicere, meaning “to throw away.” Originally referring to someone cast down or rejected, the term evolved to describe utter hopelessness or misery. It’s commonly used to emphasize emotional extremes—abject fear, abject failure, abject humiliation—highlighting situations where someone feels completely defeated or exposed.
(noun/verb) A gentle, continuous murmuring sound made by water or a person speaking rapidly and excitedly.
The hikers followed the burble of the stream through the dense forest long before they could see it, the sound guiding them toward water and rest.
Burble is an example of onomatopoeia — a word whose sound imitates the thing it describes. It emerged in Middle English as an imitative word for the sound of bubbling or gurgling water, related to the Old French borboiller, meaning “to bubble.” Lewis Carroll famously used it in Jabberwocky — “the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, and burbled as it came” — cementing its place in the English literary imagination as a word that sounds exactly like what it means.