The Word of the Day

cunctation \kunk-TAY-shun\ noun : delay

Example sentence: When a case that had been carried on the court calendar for nearly three years was brought before the judge, he admonished the lawyer for flagrant cunctation.

Did you know? "Cunctation" isn't the only word we have from Latin "cunctari," which means "to hesitate." There are the adjectives "cunctatory," "cunctatious," and "cunctative" ("tending to delay"), and the noun "cunctator" ("one who delays"). Without hesitation, we will tell you that although "cunctation" has been around for over 400 years, all these words are pretty rare -- but that's not to say that no one ever uses them now. For example, our example sentence was inspired by an actual modern use in reference to a cunctatory lawyer. Nor are they just "lawyer words": "The FAA has a cunctative approach to supervising airline security," wrote _Playboy_ magazine in 2002. So, if you delight in hard words, don't forever put off using one of these vocabulary-boosting terms.