It's the Word of the Day for November 30th.

Today's word is iconoclast, spelled I-C-O-N-O-C-L-A-S-T.

Iconiclast is a noun.

It originally referred to someone who destroys religious images

or who opposes their veneration. It's now used to refer broadly to anyone who criticizes or opposes

beliefs and practices that are widely accepted. Here's the word used in a sentence from

Axios by Carrie Shepard.

Chicago will be the only U.S. city to see the 92-year-old iconoclast Yoko Ono's new show.

Yoko Ono, Music of the Mind, goes back to the start of the artist's career in the mid-50s,

and the role she played in the creative worlds of New York, Tokyo, and London.

The word iconoclast comes from the middle Greek word iconoclastes, which translates literally as

image destroyer, while the destruction wrought by today's iconoclasts is figurative. in modern use an iconoclast is someone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted,

the first iconoclasts directed their ire at religious icons, those representations of sacred individuals used as objects of veneration.

The Byzantine Empire's iconoclastic controversy occurred in the 8th and 9th centuries,

but the word iconoclast didn't find its way to English until the 1600s.

Figurative use came later still.

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

Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.