admonish

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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🗓️ 18 March 2025

⏱️ 2 minutes

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Summary

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 18, 2025 is:

admonish • \ad-MAH-nish\ • verb

To admonish someone is to express warning or disapproval towards them, or to urge them to do something.

// We were admonished for arriving late to the meeting.

// They were admonished to take advantage of the opportunity.

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Examples:

"My parents admonished me and my siblings to stay away from the windows." — Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 16 Mar. 2023

Did you know?

We won't admonish you if you don't know the origins of admonish. This word, along with its archaic synonym monish, likely traces back to the Latin verb monēre, meaning "to bring to the notice of," "to remind," and "to warn." Among monēre's other English descendants are monitor, premonition, monument, and (gulp) monster. Admonishing someone (for, say, being late) hardly risks being labeled a monster, however. While a word like rebuke suggests sternness and severity, admonish usually suggests friendly, gentle, or earnest criticizing done in the spirit of counselling and instructing.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Word of the Day podcast for March 18th.
0:11.5	Today's word is admonish, spelled A-D-M-O-N-I-S-H.
0:17.4	Admonish is a verb.
0:18.9	To admonish someone is to express warning or disapproval towards them
0:22.8	or to urge them to do something. Here's the word used in a sentence from the New Yorker by
0:27.7	Jolani Cobb. My parents admonished me and my siblings to stay away from the windows.
0:34.3	We won't admonish you if you don't know the origins of the word admonish.
0:39.5	This word, along with its archaic synonym monish, likely traces back to the Latin verb Monere,
0:46.1	meaning to bring to the notice of, to remind, and to warn.
0:50.8	Among Monare's other English descendants are monitor, premonition, monument, and monster.
0:58.6	Admonishing someone for, say, being late, hardly risks being labeled a monster, however.
1:05.3	While the word rebuke suggests sternness and severity, admonish usually suggests friendly, gentle, or earnest
1:13.7	criticizing done in the spirit of counseling or instructing. With your word of the day, I'm Peter
1:19.0	Sokolowski.
1:23.7	Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups.

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