It's the word of the day for January 7th.
Today's word is beleager, spelled B-E-L-E-A-G-U-E-R.
Beleager is a verb.
To beleager a person or business is to cause them constant or repeated trouble.
Beleager is also sometimes used as a synonym of the word besiege.
Here's the word used in a sentence from NBC News by Evan Bush.
Mono Lake, beleaguered by three years of drought, is expected to rise by several feet,
a welcome reprieve, as the lake has struggled to reach target levels.
There's no getting around it, beleaguers is a troubling word.
It comes from the Dutch verb belligeren, which in turn combines leger, meaning camp,
with the prefix b-b-e, a relative of the English prefix, meaning about or around.
While the Dutch word meaning to camp around is neutral,
its descendant Belieger implies a whole heap of fuss and bother.
Belieger was first used in the late 16th century and is still used today as a synonym of besiege.
Indeed, an army Beliegering or besieging a castle may also be said to be camping around it,
albeit with nefarious rather than recreational purposes.
This sense of beleaguered was almost immediately joined, however,
by its now more common and less martial meaning of to cause constant or repeated trouble for.
With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.