It's the Word of the Day podcast for August 14th.

Today's word is immutable, spelled I-M-M-U-T-A-B-L-E. Immutable is an adjective.

It's a formal word used to describe something that is

unable to be changed. Here's the word used, and a sentence from lithub.com. By the 1800s, naturalists

like Lamarck were questioning the assumption that species were immutable. They suggested that over

time organisms actually grew more

complex with the human species as the pinnacle of the process. Darwin brought these speculations

into public consciousness in 1859 with on the origin of species. And while he emphasized that

evolution branches in many directions without any predetermined

goal in mind, most people came to think of evolution as a linear progression. The word immutable

may describe things that are incapable of change, but the word itself, like all words, is mutable,

both capable of and prone to alteration.

To put a finer point on it, if language were fixed, we wouldn't have immutable itself,

which required a variety of mutations of the Latin verb mutare, meaning to change,

to reach our tongues or pens, keyboards, or touchscreens,

or the many permutations of communication.

Other English words that can be traced back to mutare,

include mutate, transmute, and commute,

which reminds us the mutability of language makes great food for thought during one's commute.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. makes great food for thought during one's commute.

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

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

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