sedentary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 21, 2025 is:
sedentary • \SED-un-tair-ee\ • adjective
Something described as sedentary does or involves a lot of sitting. Sedentary can also mean "not physically active" (as in "a sedentary lifestyle") or "not migratory" (as in "sedentary birds" or "a sedentary civilization").
// Editing the dictionary is a sedentary job.
Examples:
"From open offices to home workstations, employees across industries invested in sit-stand setups with the hope of counteracting sedentary lifestyles." — Michelle Stansbury, Forbes, 25 Aug. 2025
Did you know?
Sedentary comes from the Latin verb sedēre, meaning "to sit." Other descendants of sedēre include dissident, insidious, preside, reside, and subsidy. Sedēre is also the base of the rare sedens, a noun that refers to a person who remains a resident of the place or region of their birth.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day for October 21st. |
| 0:09.0 | Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.code.uk-slash-wondery. |
| 0:17.0 | That's audible.com. |
| 0:19.0 | U.K. slash Wondery. Today's audible.co.com.uk-slash-wondery. Today's word is sedentary, spelled S-E-D-E-N-T-A-R-Y. |
| 0:29.3 | Sedentary is an adjective. Something described as sedentary does or involves a lot of sitting. |
| 0:35.7 | Sedentary can also mean not physically active, as in a sedentary |
| 0:40.4 | lifestyle, or not migratory as in sedentary birds or a sedentary civilization. Here's the word used. |
| 0:47.7 | In a sentence from Forbes, from open offices to home workstations, employees across industries invested in sit-stand setups |
| 0:57.0 | with the hope of counteracting sedentary lifestyles. The word sedentary comes from the Latin |
| 1:03.7 | verb sedere, meaning to sit. Other descendants of sedere include the words dissident, insidious, |
| 1:11.0 | preside, |
| 1:11.8 | reside, |
| 1:12.3 | and subsidy. |
| 1:14.3 | Cedare is also |
| 1:15.0 | the base of |
| 1:15.7 | the rare sedents, |
| 1:17.3 | a noun |
| 1:17.8 | that refers to |
| 1:18.6 | a person |
| 1:19.2 | who remains |
| 1:19.8 | a resident |
| 1:20.4 | of the place |
... |
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