It's the word of the day for November 7.
Today's word is dedication, spelled D-E-D-I-C-A-T-I-O-N.
Dedication is a noun.
It refers to devotion, loyalty, or commitment to a person or cause.
It can also refer to a message at the beginning of a book or song that expresses affection or gratitude for someone or to a ceremony to mark the official completion or opening of something such as a building.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Crook Manifesto, a novel by Coulson Whitehead.
Friday and Saturday nights at the whistle stop, the Robert McCoy Trio performed two sets of drowsy,
free-form jazz,
a musical complement to the watered-down drinks that the bartender Lonnie served with amiable dedication.
This one goes out to the word nerds we love, a simple word to occupy your time,
but one dedicated to serving English users' needs since the 14th century.
Now that's dedication.
dedication was first used for the solemn act of dedicating something,
such as a calendar day or a church, to a deity or to a sacred use.
The word hasn't lost its religion in this respect.
This sense is still very much in use today.
But just as the verb dedicate, meaning to devote to the worship of a divine being,
has gained additional secular meanings over the centuries, so has dedication.
By the 17th century,
it was being used for the act of devoting time and energy to a particular purpose,