It's the Word of the Day podcast for May 14th.

Today's word is Scuttlebutt, spelled S-C-U-T-T-L-E-B-U-T-T-T-L-E-B-U-T-T-T.

It refers to rumor or gossip. In other words, talk or stories about

someone or something that may not be true. Here's the word used in a sentence from the Minnesota

Star Tribune. If highly social otters want the local scuttlebutt, so to speak, they can pick up information through

the sense fellow otters leave behind at communal latrines that a group of otters will create and use.

When office workers catch up on the latest scuttlebutt around the water cooler, they are

continuing a long-standing tradition that probably also occurred on

sailing ships of yore. Back in the early 1800s, the word scuttle butt, an alteration of

scuttled butt, referred to a cask containing a ship's daily supply of fresh water. Scuttle means to

cut a hole through the bottom, and butt means cask.

That name was later applied to a drinking fountain on a ship, or at a naval installation. In time,

the term for the water source was also applied to the gossip and rumors disseminated around it,

and the latest chatter has been called scuttlebutt ever since.

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

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