Word of the Day

: June 30, 2016

nadir

noun NAY-deer

What It Means

1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer

2 : the lowest point

nadir in Context

Only once the novel's protagonist reaches her nadir does she arouse the reader's empathy, and we root for her to climb back to respectability.

"The nadir came in the MLS Cup Final, when a gaffe in front of his net led to a Portland goal just 27 seconds after the opening whistle." — Shawn Mitchell, The Columbus Dispatch, 4 Mar. 2016

Did You Know?

Nadir is part of the galaxy of scientific words that have come to us from Arabic, a language that has made important contributions in the vocabulary of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. Nadir derives from an Arabic word meaning "opposite"—the opposite, that is, of the zenith, or the highest point of the celestial sphere, the one vertically above the observer. (The word zenith itself is a modification of another Arabic word that means "the way over one's head.") The English poet John Donne is first on record as having used nadir in the figurative sense of "lowest point" in a sermon he wrote in 1627.