MOD-ih-kuhm
Even a modicum of kindness can brighten someone’s day.
Fun Fact
“Modicum” originates from Latin, meaning “a small measure.” The word is often used sarcastically—if someone says, “He showed a modicum of patience,” they probably mean barely any. Even in law, a modicum of evidence can sometimes be enough to change the course of a trial.
in-EF-uh-bul
(adjective) Too great, extreme, or overwhelming to be adequately expressed in words.
Standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon for the first time, she was struck by an ineffable feeling — something vast and wordless that no photograph or description had ever come close to capturing.
Ineffable derives from the Latin ineffabilis — “unutterable” — built from in- (“not”) and effabilis (“speakable”), itself from effari, meaning “to speak out,” from ex- (“out”) and fari (“to speak”). It entered English in the 15th century, used predominantly in religious and mystical contexts to describe the divine — God being the ultimate ineffable subject, a presence so vast that language itself collapses in the attempt to contain it.
Fun Fact
The ancient Jewish tradition surrounding the name of God takes ineffability to its most literal extreme. The Tetragrammaton — the four Hebrew letters YHWH representing God’s name — was considered so sacred and so far beyond ordinary expression that it was forbidden to pronounce aloud. Scribes copying sacred texts would reportedly pause, wash their hands, and use a fresh pen before writing it. To this day, many observant Jewish people write “G-d” rather than spelling the word in full, preserving a written tradition of ineffability that has lasted more than two thousand years.