Word of the Day

: December 15, 2023

aplomb

noun uh-PLAHM

What It Means

Aplomb means “complete and confident composure or self-assurance” and is a synonym of poise.

// On her first day as a teacher, June handled herself with aplomb, keeping the class engaged and focused.

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aplomb in Context

“Themselves a band that likes to push the edge of the technology envelope, and who made video a major part of their performances 30 years ago, U2 opened Sphere with aplomb, but not necessarily full-bore success.” — Brad Auerbach, Spin, 6 Oct. 2023

Did You Know?

If you do something with aplomb, you do it with composure and self-assurance—you do it with poise. This English noun aplomb was borrowed directly from French, where it carries the meanings of both “composure” and “perpendicularity.” The French word aplomb comes from the phrase “a plomb,” meaning “perpendicularly,” or literally “according to the plummet” (a plummet being a lead weight that is attached to a line and used to determine vertical alignment). Plomb has its roots in the Latin word plumbum, meaning “lead,” source too of such varied English words as plummet, plumb, plumber (which originally referred to someone who deals with or works in lead), and the symbol Pb, which designates the element lead on the periodic table. Plumbum is also the source of the word plunge, and therefore plunger. The fact that a plumber is able to use a plunger with more aplomb than most of us is, however, merely coincidence.