The Word of the Day podcast for October 16th.
Today's word is zenith, also pronounced in British and Canadian English as zenith.
Zenith is a noun spelled Z-E-N-I-T-H.
Zenith refers to the strongest or most successful period of time for a person or thing.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Boston.com.
The opening 40 minutes of Tran An Hung's dreamy romance,
set in the 1889 French countryside, are the zenith of food preparation on the big screen.
Food is a love language for many, and watching Pauline prepare a baked Alaska
in the hot French summer without a freezer expresses her affection better than any sonnet could.
When you reach the zenith, you're at the top, the pinnacle, the summit, the peak.
Zenith developed from a Spanish modification of an Arabic phrase, meaning the way over one's head,
traveling through medieval Latin and middle French before arriving in English.
As long ago as the 1300s,
English speakers used Zenith to name the highest point in the celestial heavens directly overhead.
By the 1600s, Zenith was being used for other high points as well.
The celestial term is often contrasted with nadir,
which refers to the point that is vertically downward from the observer.
Imagine a line going through the earth from the observer's feet and out the other side into the sky.
Figuratively, nadir simply means the lowest point.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.