It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 19th.

Today's word is veritable, spelled V-E-R-I-T-A-B-L-E. Veritable is an adjective. It's a formal word that means being in fact the thing named

and not false, unreal, or imaginary. It's often used to stress the aptness of a metaphorical

description. Here's the word used in a sentence from the Roma, a traveling history by Madeline

Potter. The Roma are often described as an

ethnic minority, but many Romani communities view Roma as a broad racial identity, stretching all the way

back to our Indian ancestry. Indeed, to look at the Roma as one ethnicity is to disregard the veritable mosaic of Romani subgroups.

There's a thread that holds us all together, which to me feels like a string of fairy lights

scattered across the world. Each of these lights shines with its own unique beauty.

Veritable, like its close relative verity, meaning truth,

came to English through Anglo-French from Latin, ultimately the adjective Verus, meaning true,

which also gave English the words Verify, aver, and verdict. Veritable is often used as a synonym of the words genuine or authentic, as in

a veritable masterpiece, but it is also used frequently to stress the aptness of a metaphor,

often with a humorous tone, as in a veritable swarm of lawyers. In the past, language commentators objected to the latter use,

but today it doesn't draw much criticism. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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