It's the Word of the Day for July 19th.

Today's word is accentuate, spelled A-C-C-C-E-N-T-U-A-T-E.

Accentuate is a verb. To accentuate something is to make it more noticeable.

Here's the word used in a sentence from Mothers of Magic, summoning the wisdom of our ancestors

by Pertita Finn. My mother could make me anything I wanted to be. As a child, she transformed me into a swan,

a mermaid, a white Persian cat dressed like an elegant Victorian lady with a pork pie hat

and a ruffled bustle to accentuate my tail. She'd trained as a costume designer.

When you accentuate something, you put an accent or emphasis on it. Stress not about the

words history, its journey into the English language was very straightforward. It comes from the

Latin accentus, meaning accent, which itself comes from cantus, meaning song. And since the early 18th century, its

meanings haven't changed very much. The word was initially used as a synonym of the verb accent

to mean to pronounce with greater stress or force, which is a small leap from today's meaning of

to make something more noticeable or to emphasize.

One excellent way to remember not only how to pronounce accentuate,

but also its etymological connection to song,

is the classic and helpfully titled Accentuate the Positive by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer,

which has been performed by such

luminaries as Dinah Washington, Sam Cook, and Bing Crosby, and the Andrews sisters.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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