Today's Word

Vexillologist

[vek-sil-LOL-uh-jist]

Definition

(noun) A person who studies flags and their meanings, designs, and histories. Vexillology is the scholarly study of flags, and those who engage in this field are known as vexillologists.

Example

As a passionate vexillologist, Maria could spend hours analyzing the symbolism and historical significance behind the flags of different nations and organizations.

Fun Fact

The term “vexillology” was coined in 1957 by American scholar Whitney Smith, who derived it from the Latin word “vexillum,” meaning a flag or banner, and the Greek suffix “-logia,” denoting a field of study. Smith, who is considered the father of modern vexillology, founded the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Massachusetts, and helped establish the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) in 1967. One of the most famous vexillologists in history was Dr. William Crampton, a British scholar who wrote extensively on the subject and helped design the flags of several British colonies and territories. Today, vexillology continues to attract enthusiasts and scholars from around the world, who study the art, science, and history behind the flags that represent nations, states, cities, and organizations.

Previous Words

Sybaritic

Today's Word

Sybaritic

sib-uh-RIT-ik

Definition

(adjective) Relating to or characterized by excessive devotion to sensual pleasure and luxury.

Example

The retreat was unapologetically sybaritic — every surface chosen for how it felt, every meal an event, every hour structured around pleasure so deliberately it became its own kind of discipline.

Word Origin

Sybaritic derives from Sybaris — an ancient Greek colony in southern Italy founded around 720 BCE, whose citizens became so legendarily devoted to luxury and pleasure that their name became synonymous with the lifestyle itself. The Sybarites were said to banish roosters from the city to avoid being woken early, to have invented reclining dining couches so they needn’t sit upright while eating, and to have trained their horses to dance to music — a detail that proved their undoing when the rival city of Croton played pipes during battle and the Sybarite cavalry danced itself into confusion. Sybaris was destroyed in 510 BCE, but its reputation outlasted it by two and a half millennia.

Fun Fact

The fall of Sybaris is one of antiquity’s most satisfying cautionary tales — a city so devoted to pleasure that it was defeated by the very refinement it had cultivated. The story of the dancing horses became a standard example in ancient rhetoric of how excessive luxury produces military weakness, cited by everyone from Aristotle to Athenaeus. Modern historians note that the dancing horses story is almost certainly apocryphal — but it was too perfectly sybaritic to be abandoned, which may be the most sybaritic thing about it.

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Vexillologist

Definition

Example

Previous Words

Sybaritic

Sybaritic

Definition

Example

Word Origin

Sybaritic

Gaffe

Lassitude

Wheedle

Callow