gulosity

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 20, 2021 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>gulosity</strong> &#149; \goo-LAH-suh-tee\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun</em><br /> <p><strong>:</strong> excessive appetite <strong>:</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/greediness">greediness</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"After a Christmas period generally spent lying down, motionless and swollen, it was time to get back to a life of squats, lunges and sub-9,000 calorie days. Before letting go of my acquired <em>gulosity</em> completely, I decided to indulge in one last meal of excess." — <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/student/doing-50-devil-makes-work-idle-minds-8447608.html">James Ashford, <em>The Independent</em> (UK), 11 Jan. 2013</a></p> <p>"By the time I was in high school, so convinced was I of the worthiness and delectations of [the English] language that I pounced upon its literature with a ravenous appetite that, at times, alarmed my father, who thought my sociability was cast into arrears owing to my bookish <em>gulosity</em>." — Ramnath Subramanian, <em>The El Paso (Texas) Times</em>, 9 Sep. 2004</p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p><em>Gulosity</em> is a rare word for "<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gluttony">gluttony</a>" that sees only occasional use in English these days. It derives via Middle English and Anglo-French from the Latin adjective <em>gulosus</em> ("<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gluttonous">gluttonous</a>") and ultimately from the noun <em>gula</em> ("<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gullet">gullet</a>"). It was apparently a favorite word of famed 18th-century author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, who has been falsely credited with coining <em>gulosity</em>, even though evidence for the word's use dates back to the 15th century.