This week’s theme
Words that have changed

This week’s words
parboil
notorious
vedette
acerate
egregious

This week’s comments
AWADmail 804

Next week’s theme
Toponyms

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(i-GREE-juhs, -jee-uhs)

MEANING:

adjective: Remarkable in a bad way; flagrant.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin egregius (outstanding), from ex- (out of) + greg-, stem of grex (flock). Earlier something egregious was one that stood out because it was remarkably good. Over the centuries the word took a 180-degree turn and today it refers to something grossly offensive. Earliest documented use: 1550.

USAGE:

“The most egregious example of this sort of scapegoating came last week, when Italy’s Giovanni Trapattoni blamed Ecuadorean ref Byron Moreno for the Azzuri’s inglorious defeat by South Korea.”
Aparisim Ghosh, Lay Off the Refs: The Men in Black Shouldn’t Take Heat from a Bunch of Sore Losers; Time International, Jul 1, 2002.

See more usage examples of egregious in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: