exodus
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 23, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n exodus • \\EK-suh-dus\\ • noun
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An exodus is a situation in which many people leave a place at the same time\u2014in other words a mass departure or emigration.
\n\n// The resort town eagerly anticipated the mass exodus from the cities to its beaches as summer approached.
\n\n\n \n \n\n Examples:
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\u201cExperts link lower rents to a possible drop in demand after population losses during a recent exodus from parts of Southern California. As the state\u2019s population has stagnated, some believe demand may cool and dampen rent growth.\u201d \u2014 Anthony de Leon, The Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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The Biblical book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, so it's no surprise that the word exodus, uncapitalized, has come to refer more generally to any mass departure. Exodus was adopted into English (via Latin) from the Greek word Exodos, which literally means \u201cthe road out.\u201d Exodos was formed by combining the prefix ex-, meaning \u201cout of,\u201d and hodos, meaning \u201croad\u201d or \u201cway.\u201d Indeed, many roads led out of hodos into English; other hodos descendants include episode, method, odometer, and period. While exodus is occasionally encountered in reference to an individual\u2019s leaving (e.g., \u201chis/her/their exodus\u201d), such usage is likely to raise the eyebrows of editors who feel it should only refer to the departure en masse of a large group of people, as when novelist Nnedi Okorafor writes in her science fiction novel Lagoon (2015): \u201cEveryone was trying to get somewhere, be it a church, a bar, home or out of Lagos. Then there was the exodus of people \u2026 to the parts of the city that had the least chance of flooding if the water rose too high.\u201d
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