Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 21st.
Today's word is rigmarole, spelled R-I-G-M-A-R-O-L-E.
Rigmarole is a noun.
It refers to a long, complicated, and annoying process or description.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the San Diego Union Tribune.
Over the last 10 years or so, I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with running.
On the one hand, I love it for the mental benefits.
My mind always feels clearer after a run, and it can be an escape from the rigmarole of life.
But on the other hand, it seems that every few years some mild injury befalls me that slows my momentum,
or I move to a new city and lose the routine of running at a time and place.
In the Middle Ages, the term ragaman or ragman referred to a game in which a player
randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse.
The roll was called a ragman roll, after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses.
By the 16th century, ragman and ragman roll were being used figuratively to mean a list or catalog.
Both terms fell out of written use, but ragman roll persisted in speech,
and in the 18th century it resurfaced in writing as rigmarole,
with the meaning a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements.
In the mid-19th century, rigmarole, also spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation,
acquired the sense referring to a complex and tedious procedure.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.