It's the Word of the Day podcast for August 8th.
Today's word is winsome, spelled W-I-N-S-O-M-E.
Winsome is an adjective.
It describes people and things that are cheerful, pleasant, and appealing.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Mashable by Christy Puchko.
Wilson's take on Snow White is surprisingly winsome.
It delivers a familiar story with a fresh perspective and some unexpected sources of nostalgia.
Despite appearances, the word winsome bears no relation to the familiar word win,
meaning to achieve victory.
The Old English predecessor of winsome is winsome with a Y, which in turn comes from the noun win,
W-Y-N-N, meaning joy or pleasure.
And the ancestor of win, W-I-N, is the Old English verb winan, meaning to labor or strive.
Given those facts, one might guess that the adjective winning,
meaning tending to please or delight, as in a winning personality, is a winsome relation.
But in fact, it's the win, winan.
lineage.
Winning is more common today than the similar winsome in such constructions as a winning or winsome smile,
but we sense no hard feelings between the two.
It's just the way things lexically go.
You win some, you lose some.