It's the Word of the Day podcast for August 29th.

Today's word is incisive, spelled I-N-C-I-S-I-V-E.

Incisive is an adjective.

It means impressively direct and decisive. It's generally applied

to either something communicated in a way that is very clear and direct, or to a person who is

able to explain difficult ideas clearly and confidently. Here's the word used in a sentence from the

Boston Globe. Death becomes her might be a combination of an uproarious camp sensibility and the grotesquely macabre,

but it also contains incisive social critiques, of impossible beauty standards for women,

the difficulties of aging, and the lengths people will go to maintain their youthful looks.

An incisive person doesn't hem and haw. They get straight to the point. The original meaning of the word incisive from around 1600 was having a cutting edge or piercing point.

The modern meaning of impressively direct and decisive has been part of English

since the mid-1800s. Incisive is a close relative of incisor, which refers to a front

tooth typically adapted for cutting. So it's no surprise that incisive has a specific meaning

in dentistry, describing that which is of relating to or situated

near the incisors. Both incisive and incisor come from the Latin verb, caiderae, meaning to cut.

English is rich in cuttings from the fruitful stem of ciderh. Some examples to sink your teeth into are

scissors, chisel, incise, meaning to cut into or engrave, excise, meaning to remove by cutting,

incision, meaning cut or gash, precise, meaning minutely exact, and concise, meaning brief.

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

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