meritorious

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 2 minutes

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Summary

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 18, 2025 is:

meritorious • \mair-uh-TOR-ee-us\ • adjective

Meritorious is a formal adjective used to describe something that is deserving of honor, praise, or esteem.

// She was honored for her meritorious service to the city.

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Examples:

"The Air Medal is awarded to anyone who distinguishes themselves through meritorious achievement while flying." — Rick Mauch, The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, 6 Mar. 2025

Did you know?

People who demonstrate meritorious behavior certainly earn our respect, and you can use that fact to remember that meritorious has its roots in the Latin verb merēre, which means "to earn." (Merēre is also the source of the English noun and verb merit.) Nowadays, the rewards earned for meritorious acts are likely to be of an immaterial nature—gratitude, admiration, praise, etc.—but that wasn't always so. The history of meritorious recalls a reward more concrete in nature: cold, hard cash. In Latin, meritorious literally means "bringing in money."

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Word of the Day for July 18th.
0:10.0	Today's word is meritorious, spelled M-E-R-I-T-O-R-I-U-S.
0:20.0	Meritorious is an adjective. It's a formal word used to describe something that is
0:24.4	deserving of honor, praise, or esteem. Here's the word used, and a sentence from the Fort Worth
0:29.7	Star-Telegram. The Air Medal is awarded to anyone who distinguishes themselves through
0:35.9	meritorious achievement while flying.
0:39.4	People who demonstrate meritorious behavior certainly earn our respect.
0:44.5	And you can use that fact to remember that the word meritorious has its roots in the Latin
0:50.0	verb merere, which means to earn.
0:53.4	Merere is also the source of the English noun and verb merit.
0:58.1	Nowadays, the rewards earned for meritorious acts are likely to be of an immaterial nature,
1:05.0	gratitude, admiration, or praise. But that wasn't always so. The history of Meritorious recalls a reward more concrete in
1:13.4	nature, cold, hard cash. In Latin, Maritorious literally means bringing in money. With your
1:21.6	word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
1:33.4	Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.

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