incognito

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 8, 2024 is: incognito in-kahg-NEE-toh adjective or adverb What It Means When you go incognito, your true identity is kept secret (as through the use of a different name or a disguise). Incognito can be used either as an adverb or an adjective with the same meaning. // The food critic made an incognito visit to the restaurant. cynosure in Context "Though legitimate reasons exist for sailing incognito, the researchers point to a number of suspicious sites of activity. These include a region in North Korean waters that the authors suggest corresponds to illegal fishing, having briefly boasted the world's highest density of fishing vessels between 2017 and 2019. Meanwhile the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, off the eastern coast of Australia, was visited by an average of three fishing vessels a day, suggesting possible unobserved environmental damage." — The Economist, 6 Jan. 2024 Did You Know? The ancient Romans knew that there are times when you don't want to be recognized. For example, a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells how Jupiter and Mercury visited a village incognito and asked for lodging. The supposedly penniless travelers were turned away from every household except that of a poor elderly couple named Baucis and Philemon; the pair provided a room and a feast for the visitors despite their own poverty. The Romans had a word that described someone or something unknown, like the gods in the tale: incognitus, a term that is the ancestor of our modern incognito. Cognitus is a form of the Latin verb cognoscere, which means "to know" and which also gives us recognize and cognizance, among other words.