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.
DUL-sit
(adjective) Sweet and soothing to the ear; melodious and gentle in sound
The dulcet tones of the jazz trio drifted through the open windows and out into the warm evening air.
Dulcet derives from the Old French doucet, a diminutive of doux (“sweet”), itself from the Latin dulcis (“sweet”). It entered English in the 15th century, used first in music and poetry to describe sounds of particular sweetness and gentleness, and has retained that musical, lyrical quality ever since.
Fun Fact
Dulcet shares its Latin root dulcis with a surprising range of words — including dulce de leche, the caramel confection beloved across Latin America, and dulcimer, the stringed folk instrument whose very name means “sweet sound.” The connection between sweetness and pleasant sound is ancient and cross-cultural: in many languages, the same word for “sweet” does double duty to describe both taste and sound, suggesting that humans have long understood beauty in these two senses as fundamentally linked.
Today's Word Recalcitrant rih-KAL-sih-trunt Definition (adjective) Having an obstinately uncooperative...
Read More