It's Merriam Webster's word of the day for March 28th.

Today's word is fiscal, spelled F-I-S-C-A-L. Fiscal is an adjective.

It's used to describe things relating to money and especially to the money

a government business or organization earns, spends, and owes. Here's the word used in a sentence

from the Daily News of Batavia, New York. The town of Java has received exemplary audits from

the state controller's office while continuing to streamline

government and demonstrate fiscal responsibility. The word fiscal comes from the Latin noun

Fiscus, meaning basket or treasury. In ancient Rome, Fiscus was the term for the treasury controlled

by the emperor, where the money was literally

stored in baskets and was collected primarily in the form of revenue from the provinces.

Fiscus also gave us the English word confiscate, which is most familiar as a verb, meaning to seize by

or as if by authority, but can additionally refer to the

forfeiting of private property for public use. Today, we often encounter fiscal in fiscal year,

a 12-month accounting period, not necessarily coinciding with the calendar year. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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