lackluster

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 22, 2023 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>lackluster</strong> &#149; \LAK-luss-ter\&nbsp; &#149; <em>adjective</em><br /> <p><em>Lackluster</em> describes something lacking in sheen, brilliance, or vitality—in other words, something dull or mediocre.</p> <p>// After a summer of <em>lackluster</em> sales, business is booming at the coffee shop now that students are returning.</p> <p><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lackluster">See the entry ></a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>“Layers of texture and pattern can keep a black-and-white bedroom from feeling <em>lackluster</em>.” — Monique Valeris, <em>Good Housekeeping</em>, April 2021</p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p><em>Lackluster</em> may describe things that are dull, but the word itself is no <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yawn#h2">yawn</a>. In its earliest uses in the early 17th century, <em>lackluster</em> (also spelled <em>lacklustre</em>) usually described eyes that were dull or lacking in brightness, as in “a lackluster stare.” Later, it came to describe other things whose sheen had been removed; Charles Dickens, in his 1844 novel <em>Martin Chuzzlewit</em>, writes of the faded image of the dragon on the sign outside a village alehouse: “many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail, had changed his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of grey.” These days <em>lackluster</em> is broadly used to describe anything <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blah">blah</a>, from a spiritless sensation to a humdrum <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hump%20day">hump day</a>.</p> <br /><br /> </p> </font>