It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for April 29th.

Today's word of the day for April 29th.

Today's word is inviolable spelled I N V I O L A B L E. Inviolable is an adjective.

It's a formal term that is used to describe something too important to be ignored or treated with disrespect.

Here's the word used in a sentence from The Conversation by Simon McCarthy Jones. Under international law, humans possess an inviolable right to freedom of thought.

As part of this, governments have a duty to create an environment where people can think freely. Inviolable is a venerable

word that has been with us since the 15th century. Its opposite, violable, meaning capable of being or likely to be violated, appeared in the following century.

The 17th century English playwright Shacrally Marmion made good use of violable in a fine companion, writing,

Alas, my heart is tender and violable, with the least weapon sorrow can dart at me.

But English speakers have never warmed up to that word

the way we have to inviolable and it continues to be used much less frequently.

Both terms descend from the Latin verb violare, which both shares the meaning with and

is an ancestor of the English word violate.

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

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