discreet

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 7, 2026 is: discreet • dih-SKREET  • adjective Discreet describes someone who is careful about not allowing something to be known or noticed by many people. It can also describe something that is not likely to be seen or noticed by many people. // She was always very discreet about her personal life. // A photographer followed the singer at a discreet distance. See the entry > Examples: “Expectations surrounding their nuptials were high. But the couple opted for a discreet ceremony that took place in Cascais, Portugal, in complete privacy.” — Ahad Sanwari, Hello Magazine, 13 Aug. 2026 Did you know? If you’ve ever mixed up discreet and discrete, you’re not alone. Which to use when writing is tricky to discern, given their identical pronunciation and shared etymology; both terms (and their relatives discern and certain) ultimately trace back to the Latin verb cernere, meaning “to sift, discern, decide, determine.” Yet despite these similarities, the words have separate—one might even say discrete—meanings. Something or someone described as discreet, with double e's, is unlikely to be known, seen, or noticed by many people (as in “found a discreet way to handle the problem”). Discrete, with its separate e's, describes things that are separate and different from each other (as in “a process broken down into a number of discrete steps”). A handy mnemonic for remembering which is which can be found in those e's: the t in discrete separates the two e’s.