It's the Word of the Day podcast for October 1st.

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Today's word is preternatural, spelled P-R-E-T-E-R-N-A-L. P-R-N-A-T-U-R-A-L.

Preter-N-A-L is an adjective. It's a formal word used to describe things that are very unusual in a way that does not seem

natural.

Here's the word used in a sentence from The Guardian.

Beyond his physical and mental attributes, Jaden Daniels has a preternatural calm in the

most pivotal moments of a drive, a game, and a season that makes you wonder if he's somehow been in the NFL for 10 years.

Preeternatural comes from the Latin phrase, Praternaturam, meaning beyond nature.

Medieval Latin scholars rendered this as praternatualis, and that form inspired the modern English word. Things beyond nature,

that is, very unusual things, can be alarming, and in its earliest documented uses in the late

1500s, preternatural was applied to strange, ominous, or abnormal phenomena, from works of God

to signs of illness and disease.

But by the 1800s, things were looking up for preternatural,

with the word describing remarkable abilities of exceptional humans,

as it most often does today.

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

Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.