The Words of the Week - Mar. 7
Dictionary lookups from New Orleans and Washington D.C.
‘Recession’
Lookups for recession have seen a bump amid economic reports suggesting that the United States may be headed for a downturn.
Nearly 61% of U.S. investors feel pessimistic about the market’s future, the most recent weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors revealed. So if you’re worried a recession is looming, you're not alone. If one particular recession metric is any indicator, the next downturn may be coming sooner rather than later.
—Katie Brockman, The Motley Fool, 3 Mar. 2025
Comments from a member of President Trump’s cabinet over the weekend have renewed concerns that the new administration could seek to interfere with federal statistics—especially if they start to show that the economy is slipping into a recession. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, suggested that he planned to change the way the government reports data on gross domestic product in order to remove the impact of government spending.
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We define the sense of recession relevant to economics as “a period of significantly reduced general economic activity that is marked especially by declines in employment and production and that lasts more than a few months.” In other contexts, recession may mean “the act or action of receding or withdrawing” (as in “the recession of floodwaters”) or “a departing procession (as of clergy and choir at the end of a church service).”
‘Mardi Gras’
Mardi Gras was looked up a lot this week (Tuesday was Mardi Gras) as were entries for related terms including krewe and king cake.
Beginning as a religious holiday observed prior to the Christian Lenten season, Mardi Gras has since expanded from a single day of observation to weeks (or months) of partying. The festivals and celebrations in the weeks leading up to the Lenten season are celebrated across the world, from France to Brazil and beyond. And, in the U.S. although it is celebrated in other cities like Mobile, Alabama, St. Louis, Missouri, Galveston, Texas and cities throughout Louisiana, it’s most famously celebrated in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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Mardi Gras may refer either to Shrove Tuesday often observed (as in New Orleans) with parades and festivities, or to the carnival period that climaxes on Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday.”
‘Lent’
Lent has also seen high lookups this week.
Racers dressed as a skyscraper, beekeeper and a chest of drawers were among dozens of runners in zany costumes zipping around a central London square with a frying pan in hand to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, or “Pancake Day.” … The spectacle was one of many such pancake races across the U.K. to mark the day before the start of Lent, the 40-day period before Easter that Christians mark with prayers, fasting and repentance. Celebrated as Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, in other parts of the world, the name Shrove Tuesday derives from the English word meaning to seek forgiveness or be granted absolution.
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Lent refers to the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter observed by the Roman Catholic, Eastern, and some Protestant churches as a period of penitence and fasting.
‘Mandate’
Lookups for mandate rose on Tuesday night during a joint session of Congress and remained high.
Al Green, a U.S. representative from Texas’ 9th congressional district, was removed from President Trump’s Tuesday night joint session of Congress after repeatedly interrupting the president's speech. Only a few minutes into President Trump’s address, Green stood up from his seat and shouted, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid,” inciting boos from the Republican side of Congressional Hall.
—Green, who had called for Trump’s impeachment during the Republican’s first term in office, later told reporters it was worth it to make his point even if he is punished by House leaders, who later called for the congressman to be censured. ‘The president was saying he had a mandate, and I was making it clear that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid,’ Green told reporters, referring to the healthcare programme used by 80 million mainly low-income Americans.
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The relevant sense of mandate is “an authorization to act given to a representative” (it also carries such meanings as “an authoritative command; especially, a formal order from a superior court or official to an inferior one”). The word functions additionally as a verb, with such meanings as “to officially require (something)” and “to make (something) mandatory.”
‘Censure’
Censure was also in the news a considerable amount after the same Democratic member of Congress referenced above was censured.
House votes to censure Rep. Al Green for disrupting Trump speech
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Censure often carries with it the meaning of official disapproval: the word may be defined as “a judgment involving condemnation,” “the act of blaming or condemning sternly,” or “an official reprimand.” And although it is similar in spelling and pronunciation to censor the two words are distinct in meaning: to censor is to remove, block, or interfere with the communication of another.
‘Transgenic’
Lookups for transgenic also rose in the wake of the president’s address to Congress.
US President Donald Trump, in his address to Congress, called out the previous Joe Biden administration for spending millions of dollars on making “mice transgender” in a slip-up for what was supposed to be “transgenic mice”. … However, a PhD scholar steered the Internet away from jokes to highlight that transgenic mice are a powerful molecular biology tool.
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We define the adjective form of transgenic as “being or used to produce an organism or cell of one species into which one or more genes of another species have been incorporated,” as in “transgenic crops” or “transgenic mouse.” Transgenic can also be used to describe things that are produced by or consist of transgenic plants or animals.
Word Worth Knowing: ‘Hemidemisemiquaver’
Hemidemisemiquavers, also known as sixty-fourth notes (musical notes with the time value of ¹/₆₄ of a whole note), are the fastest musical notes that are commonly played, and performing them well can stretch human technique to its limit. The term is mainly used in Britain, where eighth notes are called quavers, sixteenth notes are called semiquavers, and thirty-second notes are called demisemiquavers. In the United States, hemidemisemiquaver is likely to be used humorously, occurring especially as a clever substitute for moment or bit, as in “the concert ended not a hemidemisemiquaver too soon.”
The eight players of Il Giardino Armonico are virtuosos and more. Though controlled to the hemidemisemiquaver, they are as lively as a roomful of puppies. Their music communicates authentic thrills and contagious energy to the listener.
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