Word of the Day - 10/12/25
congenial
/kən'dʒinjəl/(adj.): suitable to your needs
The new office environment was congenial to his quiet working style.
(adj.): (of a person) pleasant because of a personality, qualities, or interests that are similar to one's own
He was so congenial — turns out we both hate pineapple on pizza and love cheesy '80s movies.
Word Origin
The word "congenial" originates from the Latin "congenialis", formed from the prefix "con-" meaning "with, together" and "genialis" meaning "of birth, of the genius, productive, festive, pleasant." "Genialis" itself derives from "genius", which in Latin referred to a guardian spirit or an inborn disposition and intellectual capacity. Thus, "congenial" literally means "having the same genius or spirit," evolving to describe something or someone that is pleasant and agreeable because it shares a similar nature or disposition with another.
Words with similar origins include "genial" (directly from Latin "genialis"), "generate" (from Latin "generare" meaning to beget), "genesis" (from Greek "genesis" meaning origin), "gender" (from Latin "genus" meaning race, kind), and "genuine" (from Latin "genuinus" meaning inborn, natural).
As a reminder, here are all of the words from this week:
apophenia concomitant intractable
congenial
See if you can remember all of this week's words! Here is a sentence that includes all seven, followed by a version that simplifies them to help you remember:
His generally congenial colleagues took umbrage at the CEO's caustic remarks, which seemed designed to aggrandize his own insights while dismissing their intractable problems as mere apophenia, ignoring the concomitant data.His usually friendly coworkers took offense at the CEO's harsh comments, which seemed meant to inflate his own ideas while ignoring their stubborn problems as just seeing patterns where none existed, disregarding the accompanying data.