It's the Word of the Day podcast for February 21st.

Today's word is laconic, spelled L-A-C-O-N-I-C.

Laconic is an adjective.

It describes someone or something communicating with few words.

Laconic can more narrowly mean concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious.

Here's the word used in a sentence from lithub.com.

Elijah did not enjoy all my choices, but my son listened closely to every selection.

He remembered plot points better than I did, and assessed historical figures concisely.

Mean, he said of Voltaire.

Creepy, summed up Alexander Hamilton.

Most surprising, my laconic teenager shared my love of Austin. Those hours listening

to pride and prejudice were some of the happiest of my parenting life. We'll keep it brief.

Laconia was once an ancient province in southern Greece. Its capital city was Sparta, and the Spartans were famous for their

terseeness of speech. Laconic comes to us by way of the Latin word laconicus, meaning

Spartan, from the Greek word laconicos. In current use, laconic means terse, or concise to the point

of seeming rude or mysterious,

and thus recalls the Spartans

tight-lipped tasseturnity.

With your word of the day,

I'm Peter Sakalowski.

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