querulous
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 16 March 2024
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 16, 2024 is:
querulous • \KWAIR-yuh-lus\ • adjective
Someone described as querulous is constantly or habitually complaining. Querulous can also be used synonymously with fretful or whining when describing something, such as a person's tone of voice.
// She shows an impressive amount of patience when dealing with querulous customers.
Examples:
"Everyone has a theory about the decline of the Academy Awards, the sinking ratings that have led to endless Oscar reinventions. The show is too long; no, the show is too desperate to pander to short attention spans. … Hollywood makes too many superhero movies; no, the academy doesn’t nominate enough superhero movies. (A querulous voice from the back row: Why can’t they just bring back Billy Crystal?)" — Ross Douthat, The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2022
Did you know?
English speakers have called fretful whiners querulous since late medieval times. The Middle English form of the word, querelose, was an adaptation of the Latin adjective, querulus, which in turn evolved from the Latin verb queri, meaning "to complain." Queri is also an ancestor of the English words quarrel and quarrelsome, but it isn't an ancestor of the noun query, meaning "question." No need to complain that we're being coy; we're happy to let you know that query descends from the Latin verb quaerere, meaning "to ask."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for March 16th. |
| 0:11.0 | Today's word is quarellous. |
| 0:12.0 | Today's word is querulous, also pronounced quarreless and spelled |
| 0:15.7 | Q-U-E-R-U-L-O-S. |
| 0:19.7 | Quarless is an adjective. |
| 0:21.7 | Someone described as quarreless is constantly or habitually complaining. |
| 0:26.0 | Quarilis can also be used synonymously with the words fretful or whining when describing |
| 0:32.2 | something such as a person's tone of voice. |
| 0:35.0 | Here's the word used in a sentence from the New York Times by Ross Dauthad. |
| 0:39.0 | Everyone has a theory about the decline of the Academy Awards, the sinking ratings that have led to |
| 0:45.3 | endless Oscar reinventions. |
| 0:48.0 | The show is too long, no, the show is too desperate to pander to short attention spans. |
| 0:53.0 | Hollywood makes too many superhero movies. |
| 0:56.0 | No, the Academy doesn't nominate enough |
| 0:59.0 | superhero movies. |
| 1:01.0 | A querulous voice from the back row, why can't they just bring back Billy Crystal? |
| 1:07.0 | English speakers have called fretful whiners, quirilous since the late medieval period. The middle English form of the word |
| 1:15.2 | Quirilose was an adaptation of the Latin adjective Quirulous, which in turn evolved |
| 1:21.6 | from the Latin verb query meaning to complain |
| 1:25.0 | query is also an ancestor of the English words quarrel and quarrelsome |
| 1:30.3 | but it isn't an ancestor of the noun query which means question. |
| 1:36.0 | No need to complain that we're being coy. |
... |
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