radial
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 15, 2025 is:
radial \RAY-dee-ul\ adjective
Radial describes things that are arranged or have parts arranged in straight lines coming out from the center of a circle.
// Her mosaics echo radial patterns observed in nature, from succulents to sea urchins.
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Examples:
"Inspired by flowers that grow organically, the project transforms organic patterns into space arrangements, embodying the idea of blooming. The design distills the essence of a flower's radial symmetry into a geometric language, creating a rhythmic play of radial patterns and sunburst lines." — Architecture Update (India), 19 Feb. 2025
Did you know?
Picture the sun shining brightly on a cloudless day. Its rays stretch in every direction along radiant radii so far-reaching they radiate daylight. It's pretty rad, and it's a cinch to describe in English thanks to the expansive influence of the Latin noun radius, meaning "ray." As you might have guessed, radius is an ancestor of the English words ray, radiant, radiate, and of course radius. It's also the sunny source of radial, which joined our language in the 1500s as an adjective meaning "arranged or having parts arranged like rays." Radial has bourgeoned in meaning over the centuries, adopting unique applications across many fields including medicine, engineering, and astronomy.
