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Foreign.
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It'S the word of the day for August 25th.
Doug Limu
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Today's word is undulant. Spelled U N D U L A N T. Undulant is an adjective. It describes things that rise and fall in waves, or things that have a wavy form, outline or surface. Here's the word used in a sentence from lithub.com by Monica Wood Though tightly bound by our love of books, we bibliophiles are a sundry lot, managing our obsession in a grand variety of ways. We organize by title, by author, by genre, by topic, by color, by height, by width, by depth. We stack books into attractive still lifes accompanied by a single tulip in a bud vase, or into risky undulant towers poised to flatten un a passing house cat. If you're looking for an adjective that encapsulates the rising and falling of the briny sea, wave hello to the word undulant. While not an especially common descriptor, it is useful not only for describing the ocean itself but for everything from rolling hills to a snake's sinuous movement to a fever that waxes and wanes. The root of the word undulant is, perhaps unsurprisingly, unda, a Latin word meaning wave. Other English words swimming the wake of unda include inundate, meaning to cover with a flood, and undulate, meaning to form or move in waves. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
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Visit merriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay and trending. Word lookups.
Podcast: Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day
Date: August 25, 2025
Host: Peter Sokolowski
This episode revolves around deepening listeners’ vocabulary by exploring the adjective undulant, its definition, origins, multiple uses, and related words. The goal is to enrich word knowledge and demonstrate “undulant” in context, engaging lovers of language with practical applications.
"We stack books into attractive still lifes accompanied by a single tulip in a bud vase, or into risky undulant towers poised to flatten a passing house cat."
The episode maintains Merriam-Webster’s classic, approachable, and slightly playful tone. The host interweaves scholarship with accessible language: “Wave hello to the word undulant,” making vocabulary both engaging and memorable.
This episode makes “undulant” accessible, memorable, and ready for listeners’ everyday vocabulary, connecting the word’s shape, feel, and Latin root to common images and contexts.