veritable

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 19, 2025 is: veritable \VAIR-uh-tuh-bul\ adjective Veritable is a formal adjective that means “being in fact the thing named and not false, unreal, or imaginary.” It is often used to stress the [aptness](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aptness) of a metaphorical description. // The island is a veritable paradise. // The sale attracted a veritable mob of people. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/veritable) Examples: “The Roma are often described as an ethnic minority, but many Romani communities view ‘Roma’ as a broad racial identity, stretching all the way back to our Indian ancestry. Indeed, to look at the Roma as one ethnicity is to disregard the veritable mosaic of Romani subgroups. There’s a thread that holds us all together, which to me feels like a string of fairy lights scattered across the world. Each of these lights shines with its own unique beauty.” — Madeline Potter, The Roma: A Traveling History, 2025 Did you know? Veritable, like its close relative [verity](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verity) (“truth”), came to English through Anglo-French from Latin, ultimately the adjective vērus, meaning “true,” which also gave English [verify](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verify), [aver](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aver), and [verdict](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verdict). Veritable is often used as a synonym of [genuine](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genuine) or [authentic](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authentic) (“a veritable masterpiece”), but it is also frequently used to stress the aptness of a metaphor, often with a humorous tone (“a veritable swarm of lawyers”). In the past, language commentators objected to the latter use, but today it doesn’t draw much criticism.