It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 3rd.
Today's word is cronyism.
Spelled C-R-O-N-Y-I-S-M, cronyism is a noun.
It's the unfair practice by a powerful person, such as a politician,
of giving jobs and other favors to friends without regard for their qualifications.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Time.
Expertise, not cronyism,
is needed to determine which strategies are most likely to lead to meaningful gains.
The word cronyism evolved in the 19th century as a spin-off of the word crony,
meaning friend or pal.
In its younger days, cronyism simply meant friendship, or the ability to make friends.
The word didn't turn bad until the next century,
when Americans started using it to refer to the act of playing political favorites.
If cronyism is new to your vocabulary, perhaps you're more familiar with the related term nepotism,
meaning favoritism based on kinship, especially in professional and political contexts.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.