It's the Word of the Day for May 15th.

Today's word is impervious, spelled I-M-P-E-R-V-I-O-U-S.

Impervious is an adjective. It describes that which does not allow something such as

water or light to enter or pass through. It's also used formally to mean not bothered or

affected by something. Both senses of impervious are usually used with the word to.

Here's the word used in a sentence from Variety by Rebecca Rubin.

All of this ups the already sky-high stakes for Superman, which relaunches the DC universe under

the direction of Gunn and Peter Saffron. The film is the studio's best hope at fielding a billion-dollar blockbuster in 2025, but even the

man of steel isn't impervious to box office kryptonite. Finding your way through some words

etymologies can lead to surprising discoveries of origins that seemingly have little to do with their modern-day meanings.

Impervious, which entered English in the early 1600s, is not one of those words.

Its history is entirely straightforward.

The Latin ancestor of the word impervious is impervious, which adds the prefix I am, meaning not, to pervius, meaning passable or penetrable.

Pervious, in turn, comes from pair, meaning through, and via, meaning way.

Impervious, it follows, describes things that don't allow a way through something,

whether literally, as in asphalt concrete concrete, and other surfaces that are

impervious terrain, or figuratively, as in impervious to the criticism or pressure. The opposite

of impervious, pervious, entered English at around the same time, but is much less common.

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

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