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Jul 13, 2026
This week’s themeWords with multiple meanings This week’s words 
The Choice of Hercules, 1596
Hercules deciding between Virtue (Arete) and Vice Art: Annibale Carracci 
Garden Wall of Glacier National Park
Photo: Jacob W. Frank / NPS Previous week’s theme Adverbs Wordsmith Games
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargWith some half a million words in English, you might think every meaning could have its own private spelling. But English is a crowded city, and many words have roommates, tenants, subtenants, and one suspicious cousin sleeping on the hyphen. Some are homographs: different words sharing the same spelling, as with bass the fish and bass the low voice. Others show polysemy: one word branching into related senses over time, as with head as a body part and head as a leader of a group. This week we’ll meet words that refuse to be pinned down by just one meaning. They contain multitudes. Should they contradict themselves, English merely gives them another room. arete
PRONUNCIATION:
(for 1: ar-uh-TAY, for 2: uh-RAYT/RET)
MEANING:
noun: 1. Virtue or excellence, especially the realization of one’s potential. 2. A sharp, narrow mountain ridge. ETYMOLOGY:
For 1: From Greek arete (goodness, excellence). For 2: From French arête (fishbone, ridge, or edge), from Latin arista (ear of corn, fishbone). Earliest documented use: 1838. NOTES:
The Greek arete was not only moral virtue. A knife, horse, craft,
or human being could each have its own excellence: its best self, honed
to a fine edge. For the ridge sense, often spelled as in French, arête, the word refers to a thin, jagged crest formed by glacial erosion. That little circumflex in arête is a good visual aid: a tiny mountain ridge perched on the word. In French, the circumflex often marks a vanished s, as in forêt/forest or hôpital/hospital. In arête itself, the lost s survives in the older form areste, a fossil wearing a hat. Ultimately, if you achieve excellence in mountaineering, you have fulfilled both senses of the word. That is peak arete. The English language would be proud of you. USAGE:
“’Dalton trains people’s minds,’ [Herman Smalls] went on. ‘My arete is
to train people’s bodies.’” Courtney E. Martin; Learning for Free; The Village Voice (New York); Apr 14, 2004. “I come to an airy arete -- the first solid rock all day.” Vitaliy Musiyenko; Surviving Goliath; Climbing (Boulder, Colorado); Spring 2022. See more usage examples of arete in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny. -Wole Soyinka,
playwright, poet, Nobel laureate (b. 13 Jul 1934)
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