- Today's Word
Zenith
ZEE-nith (or ZEH-nith)
Definition
- (noun) The highest point or peak of success, power, or achievement.
Example
The athlete’s career reached its zenith when she won three Olympic gold medals in a single year.
Fun Fact
“Zenith” originates from Arabic samt ar-ras, meaning “path above the head,” referring to the highest point in the sky directly overhead. The word entered English via medieval astronomy and eventually expanded metaphorically to describe peak moments in life or success.
(adjective) Of doubtful authenticity; widely circulated but almost certainly not true or not based in fact.
The tale of Washington chopping down the cherry tree is almost certainly apocryphal — a moral fable dressed up as biography and repeated until it became fact.
Apocryphal derives from the Greek apokryphos, meaning “hidden” or “obscure,” from apokryptein — “to hide away” — built from apo- (“away”) and kryptein (“to hide”). It entered English through the ecclesiastical Latin apocrypha, referring to biblical texts excluded from the official canon — writings considered of uncertain or dubious origin. From there it broadened into its modern sense of any story or claim whose authenticity is doubtful despite its wide circulation.