A.Word.A.Day --nutation

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Dec 29, 2025

This week’s theme
New words

This week’s words
nutation

Les Gens De Justice, 1845
(The People of Justice)

Art: Honoré-Victorin Daumier

Previous week’s theme
No el

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

The new year is around the corner, so we’ll feature some new words. New not in the sense of being recent, but words that have the “new” sound. The English language being what it is, there’s not one way to spell a sound. This week, let’s see if we can use a different spelling each time to make the new sound.

British and American English are cousins, but each has its own personality. Take the word new. In British English, it’s pronounced nyoo, in American noo (the linguistic term for this dropping of y is yod-dropping). Which reminds me that in American English I could write my name anew and it would still be pronounced the same.

nutation

PRONUNCIATION:

(noo/nyoo-TAY-shuhn)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The nodding of the head, especially when involuntary.
2. The oscillation of the axis of a rotating object, such as a planet or a gyroscope.
3. The curving movement of a part in a growing plant.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin nutare (to nod repeatedly), frequentative of -nuere (to nod), from numen (nod of the head, command, divine will). Earliest documented use: 1612.

NOTES:

In a planet, nutation is caused by lunar and solar gravity (video, 1 min.). In a plant, it results from unequal growth rates in different parts. (video, 1 min.). In a man, nutation appears during meetings of national importance and is caused by tweeting sophomoric insults late into the night (video, 1 min.).

USAGE:

“Mark Twain’s first appearance was greeted with a perfect furore of applause, which only grew the more vehement the more he bowed his acknowledgements, each successive nutation being the signal for a renewal of the appreciative uproar.”
More on Mark Twain in the South African Press; Mark Twain Journal (Elmira, New York); Spring 2002.

See more usage examples of nutation in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. -William Ewart Gladstone, British prime minister (29 Dec 1809-1898)

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