accentuate
About this episode
This episode discusses the word 'accentuate', its meaning, usage, and etymology.
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 19, 2026 is: accentuate • \ak-SEN-shu-wayt\ • verb To accentuate something is to make it more noticeable. // He likes to wear clothes that accentuate his muscular build. See the entry > Examples: “My mother could make me anything I wanted to be. As a child she transformed me into a swan, a mermaid, a white Persian cat dressed like an elegant Victorian lady with a porkpie hat and a ruffled bustle to accentuate my tail. She’d trained as a costume designer.” — Perdita Finn, Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors , 2026 Did you know? When you accentuate something you put an “accent,” or emphasis, on it. Stress not about the word’s history; its journey into the English language was very straightforward. It comes from the Latin accentus , meaning “accent” (which itself comes in part from cantus , meaning “song”), and since the early 18th century, its meanings haven’t changed much. The word was initially used as a synonym of the verb accent to mean “to pronounce with greater stress or force,” which is a small leap from today’s meaning of “to make something more noticeable; to emphasize.” One excellent way to…
People in this episode
Host: Merriam-Webster
Topics covered
- language
- etymology
- pronunciation
- emphasis
- word usage
Keywords
- accentuate
- emphasize
- language
- etymology
- word of the day
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Mothers of Magic: Summoning the Wisdom of Our Ancestors
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