It's the word of the day for August 17th.
Today's word is lackadaisical, spelled L-A-C-K-A-D-A-I-S-I-C-A-L.
Lackadaisical is an adjective.
Someone or something described as lackadaisical is lacking in interest, enthusiasm, or zest.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the Daily Gazette of Schenectady.
The defense was lackadaisical at best, while the offense wasn't much better.
We're too enthusiastic about the lexicon to be lackadaisical about words,
but the word lackadaisical itself is rooted in the sort of sorrow
that can put a damper on one's passion for vocabulary expansion.
When folks living from the late 17th to the late 19th century had one of those days when nothing goes right,
they would cry lackaday to express their sorrow and disappointment as a shortened form of the expression a lack the day.
A lack is an interjection used to express sorrow or regret.
By the mid-1700s, the adjective lackadaisical had been formed to describe such weary and exasperated folks,
as well as their half-hearted doings and sayings.
Today, the word has lost some of its dreariness and most often describes the languid and the lazy.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
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