- Today's Word
Impecunious
im-pih-KYOO-nee-uhs
Definition
- (adjective) Lacking money; having little or no financial resources.
Example
The impecunious artist survived on his passion for painting rather than his earnings.
Fun Fact
“Impecunious” comes from the Latin im- (“not”) and pecunia (“money”), which originally referred to wealth in livestock. In literature, impecunious characters often appear as struggling yet resourceful figures, from Charles Dickens’ debt-ridden protagonists to young dreamers chasing success.
(verb) To use vague or ambiguous language in order to avoid committing to a clear position or answer.
When asked directly whether he had approved the deal, the CEO equivocated for ten minutes without ever giving a straight answer.
Equivocate derives from the Medieval Latin aequivocare, meaning “to call by the same name,” built from aequus (“equal”) and vox (“voice” or “word”). The idea behind the root is of a word that sounds the same but carries two equally valid meanings — giving the speaker plausible deniability by exploiting ambiguity. It entered English in the 16th century, almost immediately acquiring its negative connotation of deliberate evasiveness.