dudgeon

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 7, 2026 is: dudgeon • DUJ-un  • noun Dudgeon is typically used in the phrase “in high dudgeon” to describe someone who is angry and offended by something they perceive to be unfair or wrong. // The customer stormed out of the store in high dudgeon after the manager refused to give them a refund for their purchase. See the entry > Examples: “She was in high dudgeon because her expensive lunch was punctuated by noise from a child ‘a real menace’ whose parents, she said, appeared oblivious to the noise while staff … played with and entertained the tot. If the parents could afford the bill for a place like that, they could afford a babysitter, she snipped.” — Rachel Moore, The Eastern Daily Press (Norwich, England), 6 Feb. 2026 Did you know? Dudgeon is today most often used in the phrase “in high dudgeon” to describe someone in a fit of pique, or more colloquially, in a snit: they are angry and offended because of something they perceive as unfair or wrong. The word has been a part of the English language since at least the late 1500s, but its origins are a mystery. Conjectures connecting dudgeon to a Welsh word, dygen, meaning “malice,” have no basis. Also, there does not appear to be any connection to an even older dudgeon—a term once used for a dagger or a kind of wood out of which dagger handles were made.