moxie
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 6, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n moxie • \\MAHK-see\\ • noun
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Moxie can refer to courage and determination (aka nerve), energy and pep (aka verve), or know-how (as, say, reflected in one\u2019s oeuvre).
\n\n// They showed a lot of moxie in questioning their company\u2019s policy.
\n\n// She clearly doesn\u2019t need coffee to start her day full of moxie.
\n\n// The lead actor\u2019s musical moxie inspired the addition of a serenade at the close of the play\u2019s first act.
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\u201cWhen your journalistic beat consists of providing helpful tips on how to win games, people naturally assume that you are an expert at playing them. That\u2019s not always true, but I like to think that I make up for it with moxie and a reasonably consistent positive attitude.\u201d \u2014 Deb Amlen, The New York Times, 29 Jan. 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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If the idea of a carbonated bevvy flavored with gentian root makes you thirsty to wet your whistle, then you\u2019ve got some moxie, friend! Lowercase moxie\u2014which today is a synonym of both nerve and verve\u2014originated as uppercase Moxie, as in Moxie Nerve Food, a patent medicine and tonic invented by Dr. Augustin Thompson and sold in New England in the 1870s. Within a decade, when it was clear his drink wasn\u2019t really medicinal, he carbonated Moxie and marketed it as a kind of 19th-century energy drink with a \u201cdelicious blend of the bitter and the sweet.\u201d The soft drink and its advertising slogans (among them Make Mine Moxie!) eventually caught on around the country. The beverage was even a favorite of Charlotte\u2019s Web author E. B. White, who wrote, \u201cMoxie contains gentian root, which is the path to the good life.\u201d The semantic jump from \u201ca drink that gives you energy\u201d to \u201cenergy\u201d itself is as natural as a good advertising campaign. By 1930, moxie had acquired its earliest modern sense referring to vim and pep.
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