The word of the day for June 20th.
Today's word is longer, spelled L-O-N-G-U-E-U-R.
Longer is a noun.
It refers to a boring part of something, such as a book or play,
and it's usually used in the plural form as longers.
Here's the word used in a sentence from The Atlantic.
Game 3 of the world series was a stone-cold thriller with peaks of high drama and longers of exquisitely tense tedium.
You've probably come across long tedious sections of books, plays, or musical works before,
but perhaps you didn't know there was a word for them.
The French borrowing, longueur, has been doing the job for us since the late 18th century.
As in English, French longures are tedious passages, with longueur itself literally meaning length.
An early example of longueur used in an English text is from 18th century writer Horace Walpole,
who wrote in a letter, Boswell's book is gossiping, but there are woeful longueurs, both about his hero and himself.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.