Today's Word

Augur

AW-ger

Definition

(verb/noun) To predict or indicate a future event; or a religious official in ancient Rome who interpreted omens.

Example

The positive early reviews augur well for the film’s box office success.

Word Origin

Late Middle English: from Latin “augur,” a religious official who observed natural signs to predict the future, possibly from “avis” meaning “bird” + an element related to observing.

Fun Fact

Ancient Roman augurs didn’t just predict the future—they had veto power over government decisions. By declaring the omens unfavorable, an augur could halt senate meetings, cancel elections, or stop armies from marching. They interpreted bird flight patterns, lightning strikes, and animal behavior to divine the gods’ will. The practice became so politically convenient that Cicero famously quipped he was amazed augurs could look at each other without laughing. Today we’ve kept the word but dropped the birds, using “augur” whenever circumstances hint at future outcomes, good or bad.

Previous Words

Contrived

Today's Word

Contrived

kun-TRYVD

Definition

(adjective) Obviously planned or forced rather than arising naturally; lacking authenticity or spontaneity.

Example

The film’s ending felt contrived — a sudden reconciliation between characters who had spent two hours proving they could never forgive each other.

Word Origin

Contrived comes from the verb contrive, rooted in the Old French controver, meaning “to imagine” or “to find out,” itself from the Latin contropare — “to compare” or “to devise.” It entered English in the 14th century originally meaning simply to plan or devise something cleverly. Over time the word acquired its current negative undertone, shifting from neutral ingenuity toward the suggestion of something manipulated or artificially engineered to produce a desired effect.

Fun Fact

The tension between “contrived” and “authentic” sits at the heart of one of cinema’s longest-running debates — the difference between classical Hollywood storytelling, where every plot point is engineered to produce a specific emotional response, and the naturalistic tradition championed by filmmakers like the French New Wave directors, who deliberately introduced improvisation and ambiguity to avoid exactly that engineered feeling. François Truffaut famously argued that a perfectly constructed plot was itself a form of dishonesty — that real life never resolves so neatly, and that contrivance in storytelling is a kind of lie told to comfort the audience.

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Augur

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Previous Words

Contrived

Contrived

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Contrived

Inimical

Truculent

Obsequious

Abberation