It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for March 6th.

Today's word is ad hominem spelled as two words as they would be in Latin

a d h o m i n e m ad hominem is an adjective something described as ad hominem is an adjective. Something described as ad hominem involves an attack on an opponent's character rather than an answer to assertions or points that the opponent has made.

Here's the word used in a sentence from

win every argument the art of debating, persuading, and public speaking by

Medi Hassan. Ad homam arguments are viewed almost universally as bad bad,

students are taught to differentiate between their opponent and their

opponent's argument. The rationale for doing so makes perfect sense.

In theory, a person's merits are irrelevant to whether their argument makes logical sense.

An argument depends on nothing more than whether its conclusion follows its premises.

The speaker, you might say, is just the messenger.

Adhominem literally means to the person in new Latin, that is Latin as used since the end of the medieval period.

In centuries past, the term was used in the phrase argument ad hominem or argumentum ad hominem

to use the full new Latin phrase to refer to a valid method of persuasion by which one takes advantage of an opponent's interests or feelings in a debate, instead of just sticking to general principles.

What exactly came into play in such persuasions,

eventually expanded, and Adhaminem

came to describe an attack aimed at an opponent's character

rather than their ideas.

It's in this decidedly less civil application that ad hominem

appears today. The hostile nature of such attacks has led to an understanding of

the term as meaning against the person rather than its original Latin meaning of

to the person. With your word of the day I'm Peter Sokolowski.

...