The Words of the Week - July 11
Dictionary lookups from Texas, social media, and the Cretaceous
‘Vigil’
Lookups for vigil were higher than usual this week.
People gathered at a candlelight vigil at Travis Park in downtown San Antonio on Monday night to remember the victims of the deadly Texas floods.
—Claire Moses, The New York Times, 8 July 2025
We define the relevant sense of vigil as “an event or a period of time when a person or group stays in a place and quietly waits, prays, etc., especially at night.” The word traces back to the Latin word vigilia, meaning “wakefulness,” which in turn comes from the adjective vigil, meaning “awake” or “watchful.”
‘Liaison’
Liaison also saw higher-than-usual lookups in connection with the floods in Texas.
“The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County,” agency spokesperson Erica Grow Cei said in an email, adding that the NWS “remains committed to our mission to serve the American public through our forecasts and decision support services.” However, the local area office was also short several key positions, including a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster and meteorologist in charge, the New York Times reported Sunday. Also absent was the office’s warning coordination meteorologist—the person who acts as the liaison between the weather service and the public and emergency management officials—who took a federal buyout earlier this year.
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We define the relevant sense of liaison as “a person who establishes and maintains communication for mutual understanding and cooperation.”
‘Trumpery’
An Instagram video about the word trumpery by Beverly Mahone, aka Auntie Bev Vocabulary Builder, racked up hundreds of thousands of views and made the entry one of our top lookups of the week.
… a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath …
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We define two senses of the noun trumpery in modern use: “worthless nonsense” and “trivial or useless articles; junk” (as used in the Washington Irving quote above). A third sense, “tawdry finery,” is now archaic. Trumpery is also used as an adjective, defined in our Unabridged dictionary as “of small worth or poor quality; tastelessly superficial,” “fraudulent,” and “worthy of contempt.” Trumpery comes from the Middle (Scots) English word trompery, meaning “deceit,” and ultimately from the Middle French verb tromper, meaning “to deceive.”
‘Grok’
Lookups for grok spiked on Wednesday, following news articles about Grok, an AI chatbot.
Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot praised Hitler, used antisemitic phrases and attacked users with traditionally Jewish surnames before it was reined in. Users reported July 8 that they would get the disturbing phrases after typing in questions to the chatbot.
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The verb grok, meaning “to understand profoundly and intuitively,” was introduced in Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, about a human, Valentine Smith, who is returned to Earth after being raised on Mars. Grok is “borrowed” from the Martian language on which Smith was raised.
‘Tyrannosaurus rex’
Lookups for Tyrannosaurus rex were also higher than usual this week, perhaps due to a recently released blockbuster movie featuring the creature, or a news item.
A study published recently in the journal Scientific Reports analyses structures found inside a rib bone from Scotty, the world’s largest known Tyrannosaurus rex unearthed in Saskatchewan, Canada, in the 1990s. Scotty, nicknamed for a celebratory bottle of scotch used the night it was discovered, likely had a living weight of over 8.8 tonnes.
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Tyrannosaurus rex refers to a massive North American bipedal tyrannosaurid dinosaur of the late Cretaceous with a large skull, heavy tail, and reduced forelimbs having two clawed digits.
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Fartlek’
Fartlek is defined in our Unabridged dictionary as “endurance training in which a runner alternates periods of sprinting with periods of jogging,” and is a combination of two Swedish words: fart (meaning “speed” or “pace”) and lek (meaning “play” or “game”). We know what you’re thinking, but far be it from us to poke fun at the Swedes for their fart games.
Always looking for new adventures, I saw a new run up in Duluth, Minn. the Going Bananas Run. Runners and walkers received a banana suit to run 2 miles and try to beat a gorilla. They received free bananas, and a prize if they actually beat the gorilla. The gorilla was unleashed two minutes after the runners. … I was in the first mile when I thought, maybe, just maybe, I’ll beat the gorilla. I’m slow and I’m a fartlek runner (meaning I run, then walk, then run again). Suddenly, a guy taking pictures on the sidewalk goes, “Uh-oh, here he comes, everybody!” The girls next to me started screaming. The gorilla was powering toward us, grunting, in his suit with big feet.
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