It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for April 19th.

Today's word is underwhelme spelled UN-D-E-R-W-H-E-L-M. Underwhel is a verb. To underwhel someone is to fail to impress or excite them. Here's the word used in a sentence by

Zachary Pirellis in CBS Sports. Wake me up when NBA All Star Weekend ends.

Let's start with the Dunk Contest, which is supposed to be the most exciting event.

It wasn't.

Most of the Dunks and judging of said Dunks, underwhelmed.

The word overwhelm and its rare synonym

whelm have both been around since the Middle Ages,

but underwhelm is a 20th century coinage.

Both overwhelm and whelm come from the Middle English well-men, meaning to turn over or to cover up.

Underwhelm is a playful overturning of overwhelm

that is well suited for contexts in which something fails to excite.

As is often the case with younger words, there is a certain amount of misinformation regarding where

underwhelm came from.

We have seen reports that the playwright George S. Kaufman coined it and also that the famed sports writer

Red Smith claimed to have used it first. Neither of these is likely to be accurate

for the simple fact that there is evidence that underwhelming was used, albeit as an

adjective, before either of these men was born.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter S Sakalowski. Visit Marion Webster.

Today, for definitions, word play and trending word lookups.