Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day podcast for October 22nd.
Today's word is vocation, spelled V-O-C-A-T-I-O-N.
Vocation is a noun.
It can refer simply to an occupation
or it can refer to a strong calling to pursue a particular kind of work or course of action.
Here's the word used in a sentence by Brian Koretnik from his Introduction to Troubled Waters by Higuchi Ichiyo.
Through her education and her father's encouragement, she had nurtured a vocation for literature
and was determined to make a career for herself in the bundan, Japan's literary elite.
When the word vocation was first used in English in the 15th century, it referred
specifically to a summons from God to perform a particular task or function in life, especially a religious one.
This meaning is no surprise given the word's source.
It comes from the Latin word meaning summons, which in turn comes from vocare, meaning to call.
Vocation also has a non-religious function in the English language
as a word for the strong desire to do a certain kind of work,
or as a word for the work itself, making vocation a synonym of the words calling and occupation.
Today's podcast is episode number 7305, 20 years of the audio word of the day.
Thanks for listening.
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