The Words of the Week - Jan. 24

‘Martin Luther King Day’

Lookups for Martin Luther King Day were high this week, as they are each year in late January.

Born in Atlanta, civil rights icon and social activist, Martin Luther King Jr., made it his life mission to end segregation and fight for racial equality. He was shot and killed in Memphis at the age of 39. But today, his legacy lives on in Atlanta where the city hosted a day of services and parades to honor MLK including projects to feed the homeless. … The third Monday of every January is recognized as Martin Luther King Day, after it was signed into law back in 1983 as a federal holiday. After King’s death, his wife, Coretta Scott King, established the King Center in 1968.
— Archith Seshadri, ABC-6 WJBF (Augusta, Georgia), 21 Jan. 2025

Martin Luther King Day is observed as a legal holiday in the U.S. on the third Monday in January. The federal name for this holiday according to the United States Code is Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

‘Pomp and circumstance’

Pomp and circumstance was trending earlier in the week, likely in connection with Monday’s presidential inauguration.

While Sen. John Fetterman wears a suit and tie on the Senate floor ever since the chamber revoked its casual dress code in September of 2023, the Pennsylvania Democrat was true to form on Inauguration Day. Mr. Fetterman … showed up to the inauguration sporting his classic attire of a hoodie and gym shorts despite Washington's frigid wind chill that sent the pomp and circumstance of the day’s events inside the U.S. Capitol.
— Benjamin Kail, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 21 Jan. 2025

Pomp and circumstance is used to refer to the “impressive formal activities or ceremonies” that may accompany many events and happenings, but a note of frivolity is also part of the expression: the relevant sense of circumstance is “attendant formalities and ritualistic display especially as contrasted with essential procedure” and pomp can mean “a show of magnificence,” “a ceremonial or festival display (such as a train of followers or a pageant),” or simply “vainglory.”

‘Commute/Pardon’

Both commute and pardon were top lookups this week in response to actions by outgoing president Joe Biden and incoming president Donald Trump.

Biden commutes life sentence for South Dakota Native American activist Leonard Peltier
— (headline), The Aberdeen (South Dakota) American News, 21 Jan. 2025

2025 inauguration: Donald Trump signs first round of executive orders, issues pardons for Jan. 6 rioters
— (headline), The Niagara Falls (Ontario) Review, 21 Jan. 2025

Although both pertain to acts of clemency, pardon and commute differ in meaning. Pardon, as a verb, may be defined as “to absolve from the consequences of a fault or the punishment of crime”; as a noun it has legal uses such as “a release from the legal penalties of an offense” and “an official warrant of remission of penalty as an act of clemency.” To commute a sentence, in legal use, is “to change (a penalty) to one less severe especially out of clemency”; the corresponding noun, defined as “a change of a legal penalty or punishment to a lesser one,” is commutation.

‘Fascism’

Fascism has been a top lookup in our dictionary for months, and is often the top lookup on a given day. This week the word has been trending, possibly as it has figured prominently in articles and online discussion about a salute given by billionaire Elon Musk at a celebration for the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Some ran to Musk’s defense, saying what he did was “a Roman salute,” like the kind of thing you’d see in a gladiator movie. The problem with that is the pop-culture-ized Roman salute lacks a historical basis. According to “The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology” by Martin Winkler: “Not a single Roman work of art—sculpture, coinage, or painting—displays a salute of the kind that is found in Fascism, Nazism, and related ideologies.” Suffice it to say that when anyone sees that style of salute, the first thing they think of isn’t ancient Rome.
— Rex Huppke, USA Today, 20 Jan. 2025

We define fascism (sometimes capitalized Fascism) specifically as “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, and that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition,” and more broadly as “a philosophy or system with some combination of fascist values and governing structures.”

Word Worth Knowing: ‘Harfang’

Harfang is defined in our unabridged dictionary as a synonym of snowy owl. Both refer to a large ground-nesting diurnal arctic owl (Nyctea scandiaca) that enters the chiefly northern parts of the U.S. in winter and has plumage that is sometimes nearly pure white but usually with brownish spots or bars.

Harfang entered English in the late 18th century. It comes from the Swedish word harfång, literally, “hare catcher,” in turn from hare (from Old Swedish hari) + fånga, “to catch.” Fans of C. S. Lewis may remember Harfang from The Silver Chair, one of the installments in his series The Chronicles of Narnia, as the name of the northern castle of “Gentle Giants.” Fans of owls may be interested in reading more about them in this article full of superb owl words.

The Arctic regions, then, may be regarded as the present home of the Harfang; but it sometimes appears outside those limits, though in an irregular manner.
— Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy, Reliquiae Aquitanicae; being contributions to the Archaeology and Palaeontology of Périgord and the Adjoining Provinces of Southern France (1875)