It's the word of the day for April 8th.

Today's word is P-A-N-A-C-H spelled P-A-N-A-C-H-E.

Panash is a noun. In simplest terms,annash refers to lively grace and style. It appears in contexts

in which words like verve and flair are also applied. Here's the word used in a sentence from the BBC.

The star appeared as an airline pilot, twirling her way through baggage reclaim while shrugging

off a bevy of useless men, a surgeon, a priest, a magician, an astronaut. It made absolutely

no sense, but she delivered it with such panache that it barely mattered, even when she ended

the performance by pulling a dove

out of a top hat. Few literary characters can match the panache of French poet and soldier

Cyrano de Bergerac from Edmund Rostin's 1897 play of the same name. In his dying moments, Serenau declares that the one thing left to him

is his panache, and that assertion at once demonstrates the meaning of the word and draws upon

its history. In both French and English, panache, which traces back to the late Latin word

pinaculum, meaning small wing,

originally referred to a showy feathery plume on a hat or helmet.

Our familiar figurative sense debuted in the first English translation of Rustant's play,

which made the literal plume a metaphor for Cyrano's unflagging verve, even in death.

In a 1903 speech, Rostin himself described Panache with these words,

a little frivolous, perhaps, most certainly a little theatrical.

Panash is nothing but a grace, which is so difficult to retain in the face of death,

a grace which demands so much strength that all the same, it is a grace, which I wish for all of us.

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

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