Today's Word

Replete

ri-PLEET

Definition

(adjective)Fully stocked, filled, or abundantly supplied with something.
Satisfied or full after eating.

Example

The novel was replete with vivid descriptions and intricate plot twists, making it a captivating read.

Fun Fact

“Replete” comes from the Latin repletus, meaning “filled up.” While often used to describe things overflowing with content, it also applies to physical fullness—similar to how we feel after a large meal. In nature, the term is notably used to describe replete ants, a species that stores food in their swollen abdomens to feed the colony during times of scarcity.

Previous Words

Ribald

Today's Word

Ribald

RIB-uld

Definition

(adjective) Referring to sexual matters in an amusingly coarse or irreverent way; humorously vulgar or indecent.

Example

The ribald humor in the play had the audience howling, even as a few people in the front row pretended to be scandalized.

Word Origin

From Old French ribaud, meaning “a rogue or scoundrel” — derived from the Old High German hriban, meaning “to be wanton.” In medieval France and England, ribaud referred specifically to low-class vagabonds and mercenaries who followed armies and were associated with disreputable behavior. By the time the word settled into English in the 14th century it had narrowed from describing a type of person to describing a type of humor — coarse, irreverent, and cheerfully indecent.

Fun Fact

Ribald humor is far older and more distinguished than its reputation suggests. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century and considered one of the foundational texts of English literature, is packed with ribald stories — The Miller’s Tale and The Reeve’s Tale in particular are so explicitly crude that some editions have historically bowdlerized or omitted them entirely. Shakespeare was equally fond of ribald wordplay, embedding so many bawdy jokes into his plays that entire academic books have been written cataloguing them. The joke, it seems, has always been that ribald humor tends to survive longest precisely because respectable people keep trying to suppress it.

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Replete

Definition

Example

Previous Words

Ribald

Ribald

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Ribald

Cavort

Abnegation

Bilk

Impinge