vicissitudes

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 27, 2023 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>vicissitudes</strong> &#149; \vuh-SISS-uh-toodz\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun plural</em><br /> <p>The word <em>vicissitudes</em> usually refers to events or situations that occur by chance. It can also apply specifically to the difficulties or hardships, usually beyond one's control, that are commonly encountered in a life, career, etc., or simply to the quality or state of being changeable. </p> <p>// Capricorns are often described as persistent, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/down-to-earth">down-to-earth</a> strivers, unlikely to be thrown off by the <em>vicissitudes</em> of life. </p> <p><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vicissitude">See the entry ></a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>“Picture a majestic coniferous forest. The hierarchy in scale and time is pine needle, tree crown, patch, stand, whole forest, and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biome">biome</a>. The needles change annually with the seasons. The tree crowns over several years. The patch after many decades. The stand every hundred years or so. The forest over a thousand years. And the biome over tens of thousands of years. The different layers allow the entire system to roll with the <em>vicissitudes</em> and stresses of crowding, parasites, weather, disease, and fire. Continuity is maintained without sacrificing adaptation.” — Jacob L. Taylor, <em>SeekingAlpha.com</em>, 28 Oct. 2022</p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>In one entry of his nine-volume biography of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walt-Whitman">Walt Whitman</a>’s later years, Horace L. Traubel quotes the Good Gray Poet remarking on an in-process manuscript: “If we keep pegging away slowly but persistently, the book must in the end come out—if I should last,