The Words of the Week - Apr. 17
Dictionary lookups from Artemis II, New York City, and the Strait of Hormuz
‘Capcom’
Capcom was one of a bevy of words that spiked in lookups during the return portion of the Artemis II lunar mission last Friday.
Artemis II became Nasa’s first moon mission in more than 50 years when it launched on Wednesday, April 1. Dr Love served as the mission’s lead Capcom—the person directly responsible for relaying the decision-making of the space agency’s flight director to the command module pilot and other astronauts as well as communicating the needs of the astronauts to mission control.
—The Leicester (England) Mercury, 13 Apr. 2026
We define capcom (also styled Capcom or less commonly CapCom or CAPCOM) as “a member of the ground support staff for a crewed space mission who is responsible for communicating via radio with the crew during the mission.” Capcom comes from “capsule communicator.”
‘Drogue’
The word drogue had perhaps its best day ever as a top lookup in connection with the return of the Orion crew.
The final sequence of events happened rapidly. At 8:00 p.m., NASA reestablished communications with the crew as Orion made its return. At 8:03 p.m., at 23,400 feet, drogue parachutes deployed to slow and stabilize the spacecraft, dropping velocity to 479 feet per second with less than a mile to splashdown.
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We define the relevant sense of the word drogue as “a small parachute for stabilizing or decelerating something (such as an astronaut’s capsule) or for pulling a larger parachute out of stowage.” The word was first used in the late 1800s in reference to a sea anchor (a drag typically made of canvas that is thrown overboard to slow the drifting of a ship or seaplane and to keep its bow or nose to the wind) and is thought to be an alteration of the noun drag.
‘Hale’
Hale became a top lookup during the broadcast of the Artemis II mission’s return, as it was used frequently in describing the condition of the four astronauts.
“A perfect, bull’s-eye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts,” the NASA commentator Rob Navias said during a broadcast of the return, sprinkling in other descriptors throughout: hale and hearty, excellent, textbook.
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Hale, which is often paired with hearty, means “free from defect, disease, or infirmity” and also “retaining exceptional health and vigor.” The adjective has a bifurcated origin, with two Middle English terms identified as sources, hale and hail. Both of those come from words meaning “healthy,” the former from Old English hāl, and the latter from Old Norse heill.
‘Integrity’
Integrity was yet another word that trended on Friday night during splashdown.
Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen were in a space capsule they dubbed “Integrity” that hurtled back toward Earth at speeds of up to 40,000km at temperatures as high as 1650C—an experience Mr Glover described as “riding a fireball through the atmosphere”.
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Integrity traces back to the Latin word integer, meaning “entire.” Integrity can refer to a soundness or unimpaired condition, as in “the building’s structural integrity,” but it is also commonly used to refer to firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values, as in “personal/professional/academic integrity.”
‘Nominal’
Use of the adjective nominal, most noticeably by Jacki Mahaffey, Artemis II’s chief training officer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, led to increased lookups for the word.
Your trajectory is nominal, and your recovery teams have visual.
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We define the relevant sense of nominal, which traces back to the Latin nominalis (“of a name”), as “being according to plan; satisfactory.”
‘Pied-à-terre’
A proposed tax on second homes in New York City led to a rise in lookups for pied-à-terre.
Hours after Gov. Kathy Hochul declared that she would back a new surcharge tax on so-called pieds-à-terre in New York City worth more than $5 million, various stakeholders on Wednesday were trying to game out if the proposal would become reality.
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Pied-à-terre (plural pieds-à-terre, as in the quote above) refers to a temporary or second lodging. The term comes from French, translated literally as “foot to the ground.” It was first used in English with its present meaning in the early 1800s.
‘Blasphemy’
Lookups for blasphemy spiked on Monday morning.
President Donald Trump’s posting of an image that appeared to depict him as Jesus drew rare criticism from the religious right, prompting allegations of blasphemy and calls for him to take down the post before it was deleted.
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We define the relevant sense of blasphemy as “the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God or to something sacred.” A closely related sense is “something said or done that is disrespectful to God or to something sacred,” as in “condemned by the church for uttering blasphemies.” The word traces back to the Greek blasphēmein, meaning “to blaspheme,” which is also the ancestor of the English word blame.
‘Interdict’
Lookups for interdict and blockade were also high on Monday morning in connection with the U.S. president.
Trump said the US Navy would start blockading the Hormuz strait and would also interdict every vessel in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran.
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Blockade is often used as a noun to refer to the isolation by a warring nation of an enemy area (such as a harbor) by troops or warships to prevent passage of persons or supplies; broadly it refers to a restrictive measure designed to obstruct the commerce and communications of an unfriendly nation. The verb blockade, as used above, means “to subject to a blockade.” We define the relevant sense of interdict as a synonym of intercept meaning “to stop, seize, or interrupt in progress or course or before arrival.”
‘Looksmaxxing’
The slang term looksmaxxing was trending after an online influencer known for the practice was hospitalized.
Controversial “looksmaxxing” influencer … Clavicular was hospitalized Tuesday evening after suffering a suspected overdose while broadcasting live, sources and emergency dispatch audio confirm.
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We define looksmaxxing as “the practice of taking one or more sometimes extreme or dangerous measures intended to increase one’s physical attractiveness.” Looksmaxxing is especially undertaken by young men, and the measures range in intensity. The term originated in the mid-2010s in the extremist online incel community. By the early 2020s, it had spread across social media, especially TikTok. As the trend gained prominence in late 2023 and early 2024, the phenomenon prompted discussion about the health and safety of looksmaxxing, as well concerns about toxic masculinity.
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Abecedarian’
The history of abecedarian is as simple as ABC—literally. The term’s Late Latin ancestor, abecedārius (which meant “alphabetical”), was created as a combination of the letters A, B, C, and D, plus the adjective suffix -ārius; you can hear the echo of that origin in the pronunciation of the English term (think “ABC-darian”). In its oldest documented English uses in the early 1600s, abecedarian was a noun meaning “one learning the rudiments of something”; it specifically referred to someone who was learning the alphabet. The adjective—which today can mean “of or relating to the alphabet,” “alphabetically arranged,” or “rudimentary”—was formed in the following century from the noun abecedary (“alphabet book, primer”) plus -an.
