It's the Word of the Day podcast for May 13th.

Today's word is rectify, spelled R-E-C-T-I-F-Y. R-F-Y. R-C-T-I-F-Y. R-E-C-T-I-F-Y. It's's a formal word meaning to correct something that is wrong.

Here's the word used in a sentence from the New York Daily News.

New York City contributes roughly 54.5% of state revenue, but receives only 40.5% back.

Our budget proposals work to rectify this unsustainable imbalance and restore the funding

our city deserves. When you rectify something, you correct an error or make things right,

which is fitting because the word rectify and correct both ultimately trace back to the Latin

word regare, meaning to lead straight,

to direct, or to rule. Rectify has had its to set right meaning since the early 16th century,

but the word has over the years accrued various other meanings as well, including the specialized

uses to purify, especially by repeated

or fractional distillation, as in rectified alcohol, to make an alternating current

unidirectional and several medical applications having to do with healing of one kind or another.

Regere plays a part in the histories of several familiar English words,

in addition to those mentioned above. The many relatives of rectify include direct, resurrection,

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

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