Word of the Day!

contemporaneous [kuhn-tem-puh-rey-nee-uhs]

adjective:
existing, beginning, or occurring in the same period of time

Examples:

Some economic data, such as last month’s unemployment rate and consumer-inflation numbers, can’t be compiled retroactively, the Labor Department has said, because they rely on contemporaneous surveys. (Nick Timiraos and Matt Grossman, Wholesale Price Gains Hint at Muted Rise in Fed’s Preferred Inflation Gauge, The Wall Street Journal, November 2025)

These moments of reckoning - in which something that once felt exciting begins to seem noxious, mephitic, dangerous - are important to heed. (Alex Ross, At Ninety, Arvo Pärt and Terry Riley Still Sound Vital, The New Yorker, November 2025)

In addition to contemporaneous comics, architecture, and music, the film explores the influence of the space race on everyday life of the 1960s. (Ben Sachs, Lewis Klahr’s Sixty Six is a masterful journey through inner space and the American past, Chicago Reader, May 2017)

It gave the explanation, gave sanity to the pranks of this atavistic brain of mine that, modern and normal, harked back to a past so remote as to be contemporaneous with the raw beginnings of mankind. (Jack London, Before Adam)

Origin:
'living or existing at the same time,' 1650s, from Late Latin contemporaneus 'contemporary,' from the same Latin source as contemporary but with an extended form after Late Latin temporaneous 'timely.' An earlier adjective was contemporanean (1550s). (Online Etymology Dictionary)

contretemps [kon-truh-tahn, kawntruh-tahn]

noun:
1 a minor dispute or disagreement
2 an inopportune occurrence; an embarrassing mischance

Examples:

It’s enough to make an artistic director throw up a white flag, though Sachs’ decision to retire had nothing to do with this latest contretemps. (Charles McNulty, Stephen Sachs documents an American family torn apart by Jan. 6 in his new play, Los Angeles Times, March 2024)

Shiffrin has won so often, in fact, that when she skips a race, or two, it spawns a minor contretemps. (Bill Pennington, Mikaela Shiffrin Wows Skiing When She Races - and When She Doesn't, The New York Times, February 2019)

The latest in this series of contretemps between the Congress president and the BJP is the rebuttal by Arun Jaitley, currently union minister without portfolio, who felt compelled to take on Rahul in a Facebook post a day after he got home from hospital following a kidney transplant. (Sujata Anandan, Saving the drowning farmer , Salon, June 2018)

This little domestic contretemps is then, I presume, disagreeable to you! (E Phillips Oppenheim, The Yellow Crayon)

She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their contretemps. (E M Forster, Howards End)

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When contretemps first appeared in English in the 1600s, it did so in the context of fencing: a contretemps was a thrust or pass made at the wrong time, whether the wrongness of the time had to do with one’s lack of skill or an opponent's proficiency. From the fencing bout contretemps slid gracefully onto the dance floor, a contretemps being a step danced on an unaccented beat. Both meanings are in keeping with the word’s French roots, contre- (meaning 'counter') and temps (meaning 'time'). (The word’s English pronunciation is also in keeping with those roots: \KAHN-truh-tahn\.) By the late 1700s, contretemps had proved itself useful outside of either activity by referring to any embarrassing or inconvenient mishap - something out of sync or rhythm with social conventions. The sense meaning 'dispute' or 'argument' arrived relatively recently, in the 20th century, perhaps coming from the idea that if you step on someone’s toes, literally or figuratively, a scuffle might ensue. (Merriam-Webster)

coeval [koh-ee-vuhl]

adjective:
1 of the same age, date, or duration; equally old
2 coincident

Examples:

Their personalities and their pain are made almost exactly coeval, with little telling slippage between. (Vinson Cunningham, The Search for Faith, in Three Plays, The New Yorker, November 2023)

It is the alien with whom we share our planet, a coeval evolutionary life form whose slithery slipperiness and more than the requisite number of limbs (each of which contains its own “brain”) symbolise the dark mystery and fear of the deep. (Philip Hoare, Octlantis: the underwater city built by octopuses, The Guardian, September 2017)

Flipping over the table mats at Chaaye Khana, one pre-empted and anticipated, where the wisdom of tea was already trilled about, Raj coeval writers like Orwell, Johnson and Lewis, heartily drunk on the brew, speaking freely on tea with some Japanese sage opining that “If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.” (Ramin Khan, Chaaye Khana lives up to its billing, dispelling the affectation of coffee with good, strong tea, The Express Tribune, January 2011)

The inn stood at one end of a small village, in which some of the houses looked so antique that they might, I thought, be coeval with the castle itself. (Catherine Crow, Round the Fire)

Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

Origin:

'having the same age, having lived for an equal period,' 1620s, from Late Latin coaevus 'of the same age,' from assimilated form of Latin com 'with, together' + aevum 'an age' (from PIE root aiw- 'vital force, life; long life, eternity'). As a noun from c1600. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Coeval comes to English from the Latin word coaevus, meaning 'of the same age.' Coaevus was formed by combining the co- prefix ('in or to the same degree') with Latin aevum ('age' or 'lifetime'). The root aevum is also a base in such temporal words as longevity, medieval, and primeval. Although coeval can technically describe any two or more entities that coexist, it is most typically used to refer to things that have existed together for a very long time (such as galaxies) or that were concurrent with each other in the distant past (parallel historical periods of ancient civilizations, for example). (Merriam-Webster)

clishmaclaver [klish-muh-kley-ver, kleesh-]

noun:
(Scots) gossip; idle or foolish talk

Examples:

There is more of good sense, sound judgment, truth, and good taste, in it, than in all the clishmaclaver which has been issued from the Popish presses and Jesuit quarterly reviews in the United States, during the last half century. (William Hogan, Auricular Confession and Popish Nunneries)

Noo, I’ve been a gude friend to ye always, Peter, and eef there’s iver been anything wrang, I’ve been like Sir Murray himsel’ to all ye sairvants, and paid yer wage, and seen ye raised, and that no ane put upon ye; so now tell me, like a gude laddie, has there been any clishmaclaver with Maister Norton and my laird here? (George Manville Fenn, The Sapphire Cross)

Let me insense ye how matters are on that head, for it's better coming from the factor than any clishmaclaver you'll hear in other quarters. (Sam Hanna Bell, Across the Narrow Sea)

Your letter is at hand, stating that you cannot visit me on Friday per promise, because you husband has business that keeps him in town. What clishmaclaver is this! Has it come to such a pass that you can’t leave him for two days? (Jean Webster, Dear Enemy)

Origin:

1720–30; clish(-clash) gossip (gradational compound based on clash ) + -ma- (< ?) + claver (Dictionary.com)

The usual meaning of the Scottish word clishmaclaver (also clish-ma-claver, clishmaclaiver, clashmaclaver) is 'idle talk, gossip, or empty chatter'. The OED says it was formed 'apparently with allusion to clish-clash and claver, with echoic associations', and finds it also used as a verb ('keep me clishmaclavering'). Hiberno-English has the related short form clash 'gossip' as both noun and verb. Terence Dolan notes clash in Sligo ('He’s an awful old clash'), while a century ago P W Joyce reported clashbag 'tale-bearer' or 'busybody' in Armagh, Northern Ireland. (Sentence first)

chary [chair-ee]

adjective:
1 cautious or careful; wary
2 shy; timid

Examples:

Instead, 'West Side Story' languished when it was first released, its core audience of older filmgoers still chary of venturing into theaters. (Ann Hornaday, Awards season this year is already a nothingburger. And that's okay., The Washington Post, January 2022)

With a writer so chary of detail, the reader rushes to fill in. (Caleb Crain, Sally Rooney Addresses Her Critics, The Atlantic, September 2021)

I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe the dinner in Gerrard-street, if we had not then come into a sudden glare of gas. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)

Prince Vasili knew this, and having once realized that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. (Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace)

Origin:

Middle English chari 'actively concerned, diligent; sorrowful, sad,' late 12c, earlier cearig (in early 12c homilies Martha sister of Lazarus is bisig and cearig), from Old English cearig 'sorrowful, full of care,' the adjective from care, qv.

The sense shifted 16c from 'disposed to cherish with care' to 'sparing, not lavish, frugal' (by 1560s, often with of). Compare the sense evolution of careful. Cognates include Old Saxon carag, Old High German charag 'full of sorrow, trouble, or care.' (Online Etymological Dictionary)

How did chary, which began as the opposite of cheery, become a synonym of wary? Don't worry, there's no need to be chary - the answer is not dreary. Chary's Middle English predecessor, charri, meant 'sorrowful,' a sense that harks back to the Old English word cearig, meaning 'troubled, troublesome, taking care,' which ultimately comes from an assumed-but-unattested Germanic word, karō, meaning 'sorrow' or 'worry,' that is also an ancestor of the word care. It's perhaps unsurprising then, that chary was once used to mean 'dear' or 'cherished.' Both sorrow and affection have largely faded from chary, and today the word is most often used as a synonym of careful. (Merriam Webster)