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WORD OF THE DAY

A heyday is a peak of popularity or success. If you hear someone say "Hey! Back in the day, I was the best boxer in the city! No one could beat me!" he might be remembering his heyday as a fighter.

If you remember a time in the past when you were doing something really well or getting a lot of attention or fame, you might be reminiscing about your heyday. A person or an organization — and even a thing — can have a heyday, or a peak time when everything goes well. The good news is that a heyday can come again and again, so while your heyday as student president might be just a memory, there might be a heyday as governor of your state years later.

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The top 1,000 vocabulary words have been carefully chosen to represent difficult but common words that appear in everyday academic and business writing. These words are also the most likely to appear on the SAT, ACT, GRE, and ToEFL. To create this list, we started with the words that give our users the most trouble and then ranked them by how frequently they appear in our corpus of billions of words from edited sources. If you only have time to study one list of words, this is the list.

In this novel, a boy with facial anomalies tries to navigate the sometimes treacherous world of public school. Here is a link to Auggie & Me by R.J. Palacio.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this, his last speech, on April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. On the following day, he was assassinated. In the speech, King challenges the United States to live up to its ideals and calls for acts of nonviolent protest against institutionalized racism. Toward the end of the speech, King references the possibility of his own untimely death.

In this romantic comedy, Henri, a Haitian-American teenager who dreams of attending Columbia University, is coerced into helping one of his classmates change her image.

In this exposé, award-winning journalist Eric Schlosser explores the effects of the American fast food industry on global health, labor conditions, and the environment.

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Word of the Day: interminable

This word has appeared in 41 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?

By The Learning Network

interminable \ ɪnˈtʌrmənəbəl \ adjective

: tiresomely long; seemingly without end

Listen to the pronunciation.

The word interminable has appeared in 41 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Nov. 8 in “ Striking Actors and Hollywood Studios Agree to a Deal ” by Brooks Barnes, John Koblin and Nicole Sperling:

At 118 days, it was the longest movie and television strike in the union’s 90-year history. SAG-AFTRA said in a terse statement that its negotiating committee had voted unanimously to approve the tentative deal, which will proceed to the union’s national board on Friday for “review and consideration.” … Ms. Drescher called the agreement “historic” in a post on Instagram. “We did it!!!!” she wrote. She and other SAG-AFTRA officials had come under severe pressure from agents, crew member unions and even some of her own members, including George Clooney and Ben Affleck, to wrap up what had started to feel like an interminable negotiation.

Daily Word Challenge

Can you correctly use the word interminable in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

If you want a better idea of how interminable can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com . You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes .

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com . Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary . See every Word of the Day in this column .

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The Greatest Speeches of All Time, and What Biden Said

The oratory was warmed-over, but the substance was right.

I f you want to reach the kids , you’ve got to go where the kids are. Where are they right now? With their devices, of course. And what are they doing on those devices? Listening to podcasts, of course. This, presumably, was the reason behind the release of a corker: NATO Through Time , in which a grandfatherly former NATO official and three young and extremely well-informed co-hosts plunge into the past.

What’s next, Yalta: The Musical ? It would probably be a more successful venture, because Yalta was once; NATO is forever. From age to age, a new generation of supporters must be rallied, and that is becoming the 13th labor of Hercules. If the thudding disappointment of Unfrosted taught us anything, it’s that young people hate Boomer nostalgia. And NATO is the rotary phone of geopolitical alliances.

I grew up a long time ago, when the world was every bit as complicated and dangerous as it is today. But, if only as a reassuring fiction, the American president was often referred to as “the leader of the free world.” America was the most powerful country in history, and it was sworn to protect—and was protected by, should the terrible day come—an alliance of other free nations.

NATO was principally a firebreak against the Soviet Union and remains one against Russia. But Barack Obama felt that a foreign policy in which Russia was our chief enemy was a little old-fashioned. Too From Russia With Love . Too Rocky IV and Rambo III . In a presidential debate in 2012, he mocked Mitt Romney for saying that Russia was the biggest threat to America: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” Then the Cold War rose from the dead and Russia invaded Crimea, and two years ago began its bloodthirsty attack on Ukraine.

Two people who don’t like NATO are Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump (who once told his foreign-policy adviser, “ I don’t give a shit about NATO ”). This ought to ring a distant alarm bell. Managing the very special relationship between these two powerful men seems to be Trump’s version of NATO: cheaper, more direct, perhaps one day turning into an alliance of its own.

Around the world, autocracy is rising; spend any time at all reading about the evidence, and your hair catches on fire. Russia, China, North Korea—they have all been strengthening their ties to one another; all of them have a dim view of America and of democracy.

Toward self-preservation, allow me to offer my own extremely brief assessment of NATO through time, in the form of three speeches by American presidents.

N o one really knows what John F. Kennedy actually said in his famous 1961 inaugural address , because he was so goddamn sexy and so goddamn confident that the beautiful words and soaring phrases float through your receptive brain but can find no purchase. But by looping the video for a week, this is what I’ve got:

Kennedy believed that the Second World War—which had ended just 15 years earlier—was a turning point in American history. The war had revealed the extent of America’s commitment to freedom and its special role as the defender of nations where tyrants ruled. The speech recognized that the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan had forever changed the equation of human progress: “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” America had nuclear weapons, but so did its greatest enemy.

Embedded within the beautiful speech was the rationale for a lot of very questionable foreign policy. But the speech was also a flex and a warning: “To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.”

In his beautiful words, he was talking about the rotary phone—NATO. And the desperate need to keep the peace: “To those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

R onald Reagan presided over the Soviet Union’s demise. He also popularized that oxymoronic piece of realpolitik “Trust but verify.”

In 1984, he gave a speech marking the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. Peggy Noonan wrote it, and it took its place among the greatest American political speeches of all time. No one could sell a speech like Reagan, and this one opened like a novel, or better yet, a screenplay:

ESTABLISHING SHOT : “We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France.” DISSOLVE : “The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.”

The genius of the speech was that, while it described dramatic action that took place in the context of extremely complicated political history, it left that history as assumed fact and centered on the individual and collective actions of very young American men, some of them boys, who had more or less been dumped out of landing craft into waist-high waves, and were immediately under German machine-gun fire.

Some survivors of that pitiless day sat in the front rows of the audience, and Reagan addressed them directly: “You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.”

I doubt if any of the terrified young men bleeding and dying on that beach thought of themselves as morally bound to defend democracy. But Reagan followed an established tradition of recognizing the highest aspirations of American troops in combat and of finding within the individual acts of one soldier the aims and honor of a just war.

In one of the speech’s most arresting passages, Reagan tied the horrors of combat back to the suffering of parents and families. “The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They thought—or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact—that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.”

I don’t think any other politician of the past 50 years could have sold that line about the Liberty Bell, but when Reagan said it, you were pierced by it.

Young Americans then had comparatively little experience with the Second World War as an exercise of American greatness. They’d been ground down by Vietnam, and by all the music and movies about it, and by the homeless vets who sat in wheelchairs panhandling and drinking. Vietnam had brought shame to America—but the Second World War was different. This speech gave them a chance to reconsider America in a new light, as the hero of a global catastrophe. This was before Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, and Spielberg and Tom Hanks’s Band of Brothers . In fact, those lionizing, mythmaking inventions probably would not have existed without Reagan’s speech.

The tone was Shakespearian, Prince Hal into Henry V: “These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”

But the real heart of the speech was here, in the emphasis on the ways that the Allied powers had worked together to achieve this joint victory: “All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s ‘Matchbox Fleet,’ and you, the American Rangers.”

And then he said this, possibly the point of the whole thing—his endorsement of the idea that the “strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States”: “We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.”

W hen I read that Joe Biden was giving his own speech in Normandy this month, I think I actually said, “O almighty God, forbid it.” I knew it would feature our ever-diminishing president delivering a warmed-over version of Reagan’s great speech.

It was that. But, in its unspectacular way, it was also a speech that drew the sharpest possible contrast between Biden and Donald Trump, and what Trump imagines is his ability to cajole and bully our enemies, to find common cause with them and to stage dramas in which he emerges as a global ambassador of peace through strength. During his administration, Trump threatened North Korea with nuclear attack (sweet Jesus!). But he softened after Kim Jong Un “ wrote me beautiful letters .” The kind of foreign policy that involves, say, sending aid to Ukraine to beat back Russian soldiers seems far less interesting to him.

Biden said this: “When we talk about American democracy, we often talk about the ideals of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. What we don’t talk about is how hard it is.” He said the “most natural instinct is to walk away, to be selfish, to force our will upon others, to seize power.”

“American democracy asks the hardest of things: to believe that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.”

Y ou would think that freedom is the force that flows naturally, but it’s not. Freedom generally has to be fought for and always must be vigilantly—and sometimes militarily—guarded.

There’s no point listing Joe Biden’s manifold shortcomings here. They’re in front of our eyes, and they’re not all “ cheap fakes .” But Biden believes in NATO and in supporting our allies. Maybe that seems quaint, and rotary-phone-as-hell, but these are very good things.

Trump is flashier: a convicted felon, an insult comic, the last man on Earth to run on a platform of “Trust me,” and yet it’s working on a huge number of Americans.

If you vote for Biden, you’ll have to ask yourself a question: Is he still fit for office, or is he too frail, too ancient-seeming to make another term anything but a mockery of the country?

And if you vote for Trump, you’ll have to ask yourself this one: Do you feel lucky?

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Increase Word Power with Vocabulary Word of the Day

By Mary Montero

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A strong vocabulary isn’t just about knowing “big” words. Instead, it functions as a way for students to unlock understanding and find ways to express ideas precisely. Having a wider knowledge of words helps students tackle complex texts, speak confidently, and think critically. This is why teaching vocabulary and word study is such an important upper elementary skill!

Several years ago, I created a bit of a vocab game to play with students (read more about it at the end of this post), and since then, it has evolved into this ready-to-go resource that teaches your students a huge variety of words that they can use in their everyday conversations, their writing, and apply to their reading as well. 

Vocabulary Word of the Day

I designed this super engaging and systematic way to teach your students new vocabulary, Vocabulary Word of the Day . This monthly journal and teaching slides work together to provide students with one new word per day. 

Vocabulary Word of the Day Journal

Ready to teach your students new vocabulary words each day? This  40-WEEK BUNDLE  of our Vocabulary Word of the Day provides students with one new word per day. Each daily word relates to an overarching theme of the week.

Each daily word relates to an overarching theme of the week, which ties all words together and increases engagement. For example, week #1 is all about happiness – the words they learn include overjoyed, content, blissful, elated, and satisfied. 

Vocabulary Word of the Day includes 40 weeks of teaching content (200 words total) to use as practice each day of the school year.

Teaching Slides

Each daily lesson starts with ready-to-use teaching slides that accompany the student journal. It helps guide students in breaking apart the words into word part s (a critical component of vocabulary mastery based on the science of reading).

Here’s my favorite part of the setup: Before the word of the day is revealed to students, the slides/journal will display two sentences with blanks. Students will use context clues to guess what words might fit in those blanks. This allows students to generate dozens of words related to the actual word of the day! The teacher will log the students’ guesses in the class word tracker. Then, the slides reveal the word of the day, its part of speech, and its definition. The PowerPoint version also includes a clickable audio pronunciation of the Word of the Day.

At the end of the week, students will discuss an overarching theme that describes every word that week. Once the word of the week is revealed, students will determine its connotation.

Student Journal

While the teaching slides are displayed, students will take corresponding notes in their student journals. They’ll use context clues to guess the word and a class word tracker to write down their classmates’ guesses.

Once the word of the day is revealed, students will write down the word, determine its connotation, find its part of speech, and write a definition. Students will also draw a picture to represent the vocabulary word of the day, determine any related words, and use the word in a sentence. Finally, students will complete analogies using their knowledge of their words.

At the end of the week, students will determine the connecting theme and the type of category the theme falls into. 

At the end of each month, students will “put it all together” with a review of their words. Teachers can use this as an assessment, homework, or anything else!

Vocabulary Card Game

Just like using pictures to teach, I am a big fan of making learning as concrete as possible for our students. This is the original game I played with students before creating the journal. I use vocabulary picture cards for this activity. While the exact cards I use aren’t available anymore, these are similar . You could also have students create their own cards from a word bank, which would also allow them to practice using dictionaries and thesauruses. 

To play, each student receives a card with a secret vocabulary word/illustration. The back of the card has a definition of their secret word and its most common synonyms. The rest of the class tries to guess the secret word while I make a list of their guesses on the board. You’ll end up with a list of mystery words and student-generated synonyms on your board.

You can visit this Instagram highlight to see the activity in action !

More Word Study

As texts become more complex, introducing new vocabulary skills is crucial to student success. In addition to exposing students to new vocabulary, prefix/suffix/root word practice is also important. Visit this post to see my complete guide to teaching prefixes and suffixes .

Even though upper elementary students have been introduced to homophones in earlier grades, many students still struggle to correctly use and understand commonly confused words. This post has tips to help your students become commonly confused word experts , which is another great way to expand their vocabulary!

Mary Montero

I’m so glad you are here. I’m a current gifted and talented teacher in a small town in Colorado, and I’ve been in education since 2009. My passion (other than my family and cookies) is for making teachers’ lives easier and classrooms more engaging.

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A Word About the Word of the Day

Choose a term that is challenging but also accessible..

By Bill Brown, DTM

Click play to hear additional tips from author Bill Brown, DTM.

Have you ever stopped to consider the life span of a Word of the Day? Does it last until the end of your meeting before it is forgotten? Does it last until the end of Table Topics®? Or does it last only as long as it takes to announce what it is?

Shouldn’t it have a life after the meeting ends?

In theory, we select a Word of the Day to expand our vocabulary. More times than not, at least in my observation, it is merely something we do because we always have. All too often, it is not even used by anyone.

Why not? One reason is that it may not be a priority for the club. Some clubs require using it to win Best Table Topics Speaker. Others just want the word to be used and the use reported on, but they don’t really care if you do or don’t. It’s just there.

Personally, I usually forget to use the Word of the Day. I remember it only when the grammarian gives the report at the end of the meeting.

The word also might be ignored because it’s not easy to use in a sentence. In one of my first meetings, the Word of the Day was garbology , the study of an ancient culture by the study of its garbage dump. I did use it, although it was a stretch. Granted, after all those years, I still remember it, but I can assure you I don’t use it in everyday conversation—or any other conversation, for that matter.

What, then, makes for a good Word of the Day?

I suggest the word should stretch our vocabulary. But stretch it how? If you select a fancy word like acidulate, asseveration , or contumelious , would anyone use it? Probably not. But if they did, they would most likely butcher the pronunciation. Does anyone really learn a word they can’t pronounce? I suspect not.

The words listed in the above paragraph are not easy to say. Better to choose a word that is easy to say and whose meaning is easy to understand. And make it a word that has a high probability of being used in the outside world but is not necessarily common.

I find it best to select an adjective. It can frequently be applied in several situations. A verb can also be used. A noun, on the other hand, can often be so specific that it has limited use.

Where, then, do you get ideas for the Word of the Day? One place is www.dictionary.com . It has a Word of the Day right on its homepage. Other dictionary websites may help as well.

I do a lot of reading. When I discover an interesting word or one I don’t know, I type it into a document on my computer. I then look up the word in the dictionary, logging its definition next to its listing. I have well over 1,000 words on my list. When I am responsible for the Word of the Day, I merely go and select one from there.

But how to make that word last for more than a fleeting moment? Perhaps we can issue a reminder during the club meeting of the word used in the previous two meetings. The grammarian can count and report the use of any/all three words at the end of the meeting. That might develop a habit of usage.

Granted, some words aren’t going to gain traction regardless of how many times you mention them. Garbology might be one of them. Surprising, I know! When that happens, make a note of it and don’t use words like that in the future. Or maybe if a word is not well used, the grammarian can ask the club why not. That could get members thinking about what makes a great word.

And I don’t remember ever hearing a General Evaluator comment on the effectiveness of the Word of the Day. Shouldn’t it at least get honorable—or dishonorable—mention?

I firmly believe that the Word of the Day can be a much more valuable part of the meeting than it is right now. Let’s make that happen.

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Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech in its entirety

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug. 28, 1963, as part of the March on Washington. AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug. 28, 1963, as part of the March on Washington.

Monday marks Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Below is a transcript of his celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. NPR's Talk of the Nation aired the speech in 2010 — listen to that broadcast at the audio link above.

Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders gather before a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. National Archives/Hulton Archive via Getty Images hide caption

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check.

Code Switch

The power of martin luther king jr.'s anger.

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

Martin Luther King is not your mascot

We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

Civil rights protesters march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Kurt Severin/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Throughline

Bayard rustin: the man behind the march on washington (2021).

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.

And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

How The Voting Rights Act Came To Be And How It's Changed

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

People clap and sing along to a freedom song between speeches at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Express Newspapers via Getty Images hide caption

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Nikole Hannah-Jones on the power of collective memory

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This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.

Correction Jan. 15, 2024

A previous version of this transcript included the line, "We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now." The correct wording is "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now."

Today's Wordle answer for Wednesday, June 19

Today's Wordle: Help with the daily puzzle.

• Wordle hint
• Today's answer
• Previous answers

The answer for today's Wordle is only a click away now you're here, ready to dish out an easy win or turn what looked like certain defeat into an effortless victory. Need something a little less intense? Take a look at our clue for the June 19 (1096) puzzle instead, designed to give your game a bit of help while still leaving the fun bits to you.

One green, two greens, three greens, win. It's not often I get to see fresh correct letters lined up as neatly as that, so it felt a little like I was literally chipping away at today's answer as I travelled down the board. That was a satisfying game, I hope you enjoy it too.

Today's Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, June 19

Brief. To the point. Text or speech that conveys the bare minimum. Sometimes today's clipped answer seems—or can be—rude. There's only a single vowel today.   

Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

Yes, there is a double letter in today's puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day 

Playing Wordle well is like achieving a small victory every day—who doesn't like a well-earned winning streak in a game you enjoy? If you're new to the daily word game, or just want a refresher, I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success: 

• You want a balanced mix of unique consonants and vowels in your opening word. 
• A solid second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
• The answer could contain letters more than once.

There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by the end of the day. If you're struggling to find the answer or a tactical word for your next guess, there's no harm in coming back to it later on. 

Today's Wordle answer

What is today's Wordle answer?

 You've got this. The answer to the June 19 (1096) Wordle is TERSE.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

Previous Wordle answers

The last 10 wordle answers .

Knowing previous Wordle solutions can be helpful in eliminating current possibilities. It's unlikely a word will be repeated and you can find inspiration for guesses or starting words that may be eluding you. 

Here are some recent Wordle answers:

• June 18: COVER
• June 17:  PRIOR
• June 16:  GRIND
• June 15:  PROUD
• June 14:  VAULT
• June 13:  ANGST
• June 12:  DETER
• June 11:  SWUNG
• June 10:  MANGA
• June 9:  KAPPA

Learn more about Wordle 

Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and it's your job to work out which five-letter word is hiding by eliminating or confirming the letters it contains.

Starting with a strong word like LEASH—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good place to start. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you've got the right letter in the right spot.

Your second go should compliment the starting word, using another "good" guess to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.  After that, it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS). 

If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips , and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.

Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle , as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle , refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures . Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes. 

When baby Kerry was brought home from the hospital her hand was placed on the space bar of the family Atari 400, a small act of parental nerdery that has snowballed into a lifelong passion for gaming and the sort of freelance job her school careers advisor told her she couldn't do. She's now PC Gamer's word game expert, taking on the daily Wordle puzzle to give readers a hint each and every day. Her Wordle streak is truly mighty.

Somehow Kerry managed to get away with writing regular features on  old Japanese PC games , telling today's PC gamers about some of the most fascinating and influential games of the '80s and '90s.

Today's Wordle answer for Monday, June 24

Today's Wordle answer for Sunday, June 23

Tim Cain reveals his involvement in the cancellation of Interplay's Fallout 3: 'I don't think it would have been a game you would have liked playing'

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Word of the Day

Word of the day.

to bask or warm in sunshine or before a fireplace, stove, or bonfire.

Why Dictionary.com chose beek

More about beek.

• First recorded between 1200–50.
• Possibly from the Middle English word beken , akin to bake .

EXAMPLES OF BEEK

• It’s so cozy to beek in front of the fireplace after a day of skiing.
• On sunny days, we can see many lizards beeking in the sun.

a celebration of the anniversary of a special event

Why Dictionary.com chose jubilee

More about jubilee.

• First recorded between 1350–1400.
• From the Hebrew word yōbhēl which literally means “ram.” Another meaning was “a ram’s horn used as a trumpet” which was sounded to proclaim the Day of Atonement.

EXAMPLES OF JUBILEE

• The town held a grand jubilee to commemorate its 200th anniversary.
• The school’s centennial jubilee featured alumni from all over the world.

pleasant to look at.

Why Dictionary.com chose eyesome

More about eyesome.

• First recorded in English between 1575–85.
• Formed from eye + -some 1 .

EXAMPLES OF EYESOME

• The eyesome sunset over the mountains took everyone’s breath away.
• His eyesome smile made him the star of every family photograph.

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• Jun 17, 2024 duplicitous
• Jun 16, 2024 coadventure
• Jun 15, 2024 sierra
• Jun 14, 2024 venerable
• Jun 13, 2024 facetious
• Jun 12, 2024 dulcify
• Jun 11, 2024 abrogate
• Jun 10, 2024 mistral
• Jun 09, 2024 ergo

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Word of the Day

What it means.

A bugbear is a source of dread or irritation; in other words, something that causes problems or annoys people.

// The biggest bugbear of the skiing business is a winter with no snow.

See the entry >

bugbear in Context

“When faced with the prospect of any kind of online regulation, social media companies, old-school internet idealists and free-market zealots ring the same two alarm bells: Regulation will stifle free speech and impede tech innovation . For the past couple of decades or so, these twin bugbears have scared away legislators from imposing regulation with real teeth. But these arguments have multiple flaws. Social media companies are not absolute protectors of free speech and already impose limits on the speech they distribute. Nor are they the only innovative businesses subject to regulation.” — Nancy Kim, The Los Angeles Times , 25 Aug. 2022

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Challenging standardized test words, vol. 2.

• The business’s new computer system proved not to be a panacea .
• Secure space Costly burden
• Cure-all Obstacle

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Pick the best words!

Did You Know?

Just as peanuts are neither peas nor nuts (they are legumes ), bugbears are neither bugs nor bears, but a secret, third thing. Not so secret that we won’t share it with you, however. Let’s start with the bug in bugbear , which refers not to an insect , but instead comes from the Middle English word bugge . This bugge was used for all kinds of imaginary spooky creatures—from ghosts and goblins to scarecrows—that cause fright or dread. In the 1500s this bug was combined with bear (as in the animal) to form bugbear , even though there is little evidence that either a bug or bugbear took an ursine form. In fact, based on its earliest known uses, bugbear began as an all-purpose word for things that cause fear or dread, not just supernatural beasties. This sense is still in use today, alongside the closely related sense of “a continuing source of irritation or annoyance.” Use of the “ hobgoblin ” sense of bugbear appears to have begun slightly later, though it, too, persists to the present day, notably as the name of a hulking creature in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons .

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Name That Synonym

Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of bugbear : MHOPNTA.

More Words of the Day

Remuneration, clandestine, hue and cry.

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