It's the Word of the Day podcast for March 29th.

Today's word is elucidate, spelled E-L-U-C-I-D-A-T-E.

Elucidate is a verb. To elucidate something is to make it clear or easy to understand.

Here's the word used in a sentence from architectural digest. Building flexible classrooms

gives the building a lifespan beyond one class or even one era of pedagogy, which, as Lee Fertic

elucidates, are sure to evolve.

In 1974, the discovery of a remarkably intact Australopithecus skeleton

elucidated a key moment in human evolution.

She was famously nicknamed Lucy in reference to the Beatles,

Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

But we'd still love Lucy, were it simply an homage to the light she shed.

You see, the Latin Luce, L-U-C, or Luke's, L-U-X, puts the light in many English utterances,

including the name Lucy.

Take, for instance, lucent, meaning glowing with light,

luculent, meaning clear in thought or expression, luciferous, meaning bringing light or insight, or lucid, meaning clear, sane,

and intelligible. And elucidate, meaning to make clear or understandable. Those last two words

come from the Latin, lukidas,

which literally translates to lucid.

Lukidas, in turn, comes from the verb lucere, meaning to shine.

Illucidating, therefore, can be thought of as the figurative equivalent

of shining a light on something to make it easier to see.

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

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