ziggurat

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 2, 2025 is: ziggurat \ZIG-uh-rat\ noun A ziggurat is an ancient [Mesopotamian](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Mesopotamian) temple consisting of a pyramidal structure built in successive stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the top. The word ziggurat is also sometimes used for a similarly shaped structure. // Ancient ziggurats were always built with a core of mud brick and an exterior covered with baked brick. They had no internal chambers and were usually square or rectangular. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ziggurat) Examples: "The Breuer building, the former home of the Whitney Museum on New York's Upper East Side, counts as one of the defining buildings of the [brutalist] movement. Completed in 1966, it was designed by [Marcel Breuer](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcel-Breuer), who envisioned the structure as an inverted ziggurat." — Alex Greenberger, Art in America, 14 Jan. 2025 Did you know? French professor of archaeology [François Lenormant](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-Lenormant) spent a great deal of time poring over ancient Assyrian texts. In those cuneiform inscriptions, he pieced together a long-forgotten language, now known as [Akkadian](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Akkadian), which proved valuable to our understanding of the ancient civilization. Through his studies, he became familiar with the Akkadian word for Mesopotamia’s towering, stepped temples: ziqqurratu, which stepped into English as ziggurat.