WAY-lay
The journalist was waylaid by a crowd of eager fans before he could enter the conference.
Fun Fact
“Waylay” comes from an old term meaning “to lie in wait,” often referring to highway robbers. While it once had a dangerous connotation, today it’s used more playfully—think of a coworker waylaying you with last-minute questions before you leave for the weekend.
SAK-uh-rin
(adjective) Excessively sweet or sentimental; sickeningly or insincerely agreeable.
The movie’s saccharine ending felt unearned, wrapping up years of complicated relationships with a neat bow that no one believed.
From Medieval Latin saccharum, meaning “sugar,” itself borrowed from Greek sakkharon, which came from Sanskrit sharkara, meaning “grit or gravel” — referring to the granular texture of raw sugar. The word entered English in the late 17th century first as a noun referring to a sugary substance, and later evolved into an adjective describing anything cloyingly sweet, literal or otherwise. It’s also the root of saccharin, the artificial sweetener discovered in 1879.
Fun Fact
Saccharin — the artificial sweetener that shares the word’s root — was discovered entirely by accident in 1879 when chemist Constantin Fahlberg forgot to wash his hands after a lab experiment and noticed his dinner roll tasted unusually sweet. It went on to become one of the most controversial food additives in history, banned and unbanned multiple times across different countries over the following century. The irony is fitting: something named for sweetness spent most of its existence being viewed with deep suspicion — much like the saccharine sentiment the adjective describes.
Today's Word Saccharine SAK-uh-rin Definition (adjective) Excessively sweet or sentimental;...
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