sangfroid
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 27 December 2023
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 27, 2023 is:
sangfroid • \SAHNG-FRWAH\ • noun
Sangfroid refers to the ability to stay calm in difficult or dangerous situations.
// He displayed remarkable sangfroid when everyone else was panicking during the crisis.
Examples:
“[Tennis star, Novak] Djokovic’s wins are not always electric or explosive, but his patience is unparalleled. His ability to wait, to self-discipline and withhold the urge to strike until sensing human weakness, is its own kind of generative art. And he excels most at moments that require a machinelike sangfroid.” — Caira Conner, Intelligencer, 23 Aug. 2023
Did you know?
Sangfroid comes from the French term sang-froid, which literally translates as “cold blood.” When describing amphibians and reptiles, cold-blooded means “having a body temperature that is similar to the temperature of the environment,” but to dub a person cold-blooded is to say that the person shows no sympathy or mercy to others. By the mid-1700s, English speakers had been using cold-blooded to describe the ruthless among them for more than a century, but in sangfroid they found a way to put a positive spin on the idea of ice in the veins: they borrowed the French term to describe the quality of someone who keeps their composure under strain—that is, not a “cold fish” or “icicle” but someone who is cool as a cucumber.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for December 27th. |
| 0:11.0 | Today's word is Sangfoy, spelled S-A-N-G-F-R-O-I-D. |
| 0:18.0 | Sangfwa is a noun. |
| 0:20.0 | It refers to the ability to stay calm in difficult or dangerous situations. |
| 0:24.8 | Here's the word used in a sentence from Intelligencer by Kara Connor. |
| 0:29.8 | Tennis Star Novak Jokovic's wins are not always electric or explosive, but his patience is unparalleled. |
| 0:38.0 | His ability to wait, to self-discipline, and withhold the urge to strike until sensing human weakness is its own kind of generative art, |
| 0:47.0 | and he excels most at moments that require a machine-like songfois. |
| 0:52.0 | The word songfoy comes from the French term s'on-froix, which |
| 0:56.8 | literally translates as cold blood. When describing amphibians and reptiles, |
| 1:02.1 | cold-blooded means having a body temperature that is similar to the temperature of the environment. |
| 1:08.0 | But to dub a person cold-blooded is to say that the person shows no sympathy or mercy to others. By the mid-1700s English |
| 1:16.7 | speakers had been using cold-blooded to describe the ruthless among them for more than a century, |
| 1:22.4 | but in Sanfua they found a way to put a positive spin on the idea of ice in the veins. They borrowed the French term to describe the quality of someone who keeps their composure under strain, that is not a cold fish or an |
| 1:36.1 | icicle, but someone who is cool as a cucumber. |
| 1:39.6 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. Visit Marion Webster.com today for definitions, word play and trending word lookups. |
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