It's Merriam Webster's Word of the Day for September 18th.

Today's word is Zenith, also pronounced in Canadian and British English as Zenith, and

spelled Z-E-N-I-T-H. Zenith is a noun. It refers to the strongest or most successful

period of time for a person or thing. Here's the word used in a sentence from the New

York Times by Olivia Horn. Once deemed one of the most underrated musicians in rock

history by David Bowie, John Cale is best known as the viola scraping velvet underground

co-founder who grounded the group in the avant-garde. But those years hardly marked a creative

zenith for Cale. Since leaving the band in 1968, he has released more than a dozen solo

albums, ranging in style from orchestral pop to new wave and punk, collaborated with

luminaries like Patty Smith and Brian Eno, and scored numerous films.

When you reach the zenith, you're at the top, the pinnacle, the summit, the peak. The

word zenith developed from an Arabic phrase, meaning the way over one's head, and then

traveled through old Spanish, medieval Latin, and middle French, before arriving in English.

As long ago as the 1300s, English speakers used zenith to name the highest point in the

celestial heavens directly overhead. By the 1600s, zenith was being used for other high

points as well. The celestial term is often contrasted with the word Nadir, N-A-D-I-R,

which refers to the point that is vertically downward from the observer. Imagine a line

going through the earth from the observer's feet and out the other side into the sky.

Figuratively, Nadir simply means the lowest point. With your word of the day, I'm Peter

Sakalowski.