It's the Word of the Day for November 10th.

Today's word is truncate, spelled T-R-U-N-C-A-T-E. Truncate is a verb. To truncate something,

such as a discussion or essay, is to make it shorter.

Here's the word used. In a sentence from lithub.com, I am a scholar and a student of the Arabic poetic

tradition. I study poets from Imu al-Kais to Mahmoud-Darwish, from Al-Samarwal to Hiba Abu Nada.

I am not willing to chop up this tradition into palatable and digestible bites.

I will not truncate a poem if the ending makes you uncomfortable.

Bushwack your way deep enough into the literature of tree identification,

and you may come across references

to trees with truncate leaves. Such leaves, as of the tulip tree, for example, have bases

that are straight and even, as though they've been cut or sheared away from something larger.

The adjectival use of the word truncate isn't common. It's mostly found

in technical writing, and can also describe feathers that appear squared or evened off. But the familiar

verb doesn't fall far from the tree. It's applied when something is shortened by literally or figuratively

lopping part of it off,

as when someone truncates a planned speech to fit time constraints.

Both adjective and noun come from the Latin verb truncare, meaning to shorten,

which in turn traces back to the noun truncus, meaning trunk.

So next time you're stumped about the meaning of the word

truncate, try to picture, well, a stump. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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