Word of the Day

: August 2, 2019

clarion

adjective KLAIR-ee-un

What It Means

: brilliantly clear; also : loud and clear

clarion in Context

"The guitars take off like fighter planes and [Stef Chura] delivers a clarion, country-steeped vocal, somewhere between Kitty Wells and Kurt Cobain." — Megan Reynolds, Jezebel, 3 June 2019

"The commonest winter birds cheered me on: the chickadees and titmice, woodpeckers and jays, crows, cardinals, and sparrows.  And of course my clarion wrens." — Jack Wennerstrom, The Bird Watcher's Digest, September/October 1992

Did You Know?

In the Middle Ages, clarion was a noun, the name for a trumpet that could play a melody in clear, shrill tones. The noun has since been used for the sound of a trumpet or a similar sound. By the early 1800s, English speakers also started using the word as an adjective for things that ring as clear as the call of a well-played trumpet. Not surprisingly, clarion ultimately derives (via the Medieval Latin clario-) from clarus, which is the Latin word for "clear." In addition, clarus gave English speakers clarify, clarity, declare ("to make clearly known"), and clear itself.