vih-tree-AH-lik
(adjective) Filled with bitter criticism or malice.
Her vitriolic comments silenced the room.
Fun Fact
“Vitriolic” stems from the Latin word for sulfuric acid—once called “oil of vitriol.” Originally describing corrosive chemicals, the word evolved to describe words or tone that metaphorically burn.
WOHNT (rhymes with “don’t”)
(noun/adjective) A habitual or customary practice; accustomed to behaving in a particular way.
As was her wont, she arrived twenty minutes early and rearranged the furniture before anyone else showed up.
From Old English gewunod, past participle of gewunian (“to be accustomed”), related to wunian (“to dwell, to remain”). The word shares a root with “won” (archaic past tense of “to dwell”) and is distantly related to the modern German wohnen (“to live, to dwell”). A wont is something you dwell in — a habit so settled it becomes a kind of home.
Fun Fact
“Wont” is one of the most consistently misused words in English — it’s regularly confused with “won’t” (the contraction of “will not”) simply because they sound identical in many accents. Despite this, “wont” has survived in literary and formal writing for over a thousand years, appearing in Shakespeare, Milton, and Austen. It’s also one of the few words in English that functions as a noun, adjective, and past participle without changing its form at all — a linguistic Swiss Army knife that most people have never noticed.
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