It's the Word of the Day podcast for December 16th.
Today's word is conversant, spelled C-O-N-V-E-R-S-A-N-T.
Conversant is an adjective.
It's usually used in the phrase conversant with,
describing someone who has knowledge of or experience with something.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the New York Times.
The advantages of franchise expansion are obvious.
These shows benefit from name recognition and a dedicated audience, as well as writers,
producers, and crew members already conversant with that audience's expectations.
The adjectives conversant and conversational both descend from the Latin verb conversari,
meaning to associate with.
Conversant dates to the Middle Ages,
and early meaning of the word was simply having familiar association.
One way to associate with others is to have a conversation with them, in other words, to talk.
For a short time in the 19th century, conversant could mean relating to or suggesting conversation.
But for the most part, that meaning stayed with conversational,
while conversant went in a different direction.
Today, conversant is sometimes used, especially in the United States, with the meaning,
able to talk in a foreign language, as in, she is conversant in several languages.
But it's more often associated with knowledge or familiarity, as in, conversant with the issues.