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WORD OF THE DAY

December 27, 2023

sangfroid

noun | SAHNG-FRWAH

What It Means

Sangfroid refers to the ability to stay calm in difficult or dangerous situations.
// He displayed remarkable sangfroid when everyone else was panicking during the crisis.
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Examples of SANGFROID

â€œ[Tennis star, Novak] Djokovicâ€™s wins are not always electric or explosive, but his patience is unparalleled. His ability to wait, to self-discipline and withhold the urge to strike until sensing human weakness, is its own kind of generative art. And he excels most at moments that require a machinelike sangfroid.â€ â€” Caira Conner, Intelligencer, 23 Aug. 2023

Did You Know?

Sangfroid comes from the French term sang-froid, which literally translates as â€œcold blood.â€ When describing amphibians and reptiles, cold-blooded means â€œhaving a body temperature that is similar to the temperature of the environment,â€ but to dub a person cold-blooded is to say that the person shows no sympathy or mercy to others. By the mid-1700s, English speakers had been using cold-blooded to describe the ruthless among them for more than a century, but in sangfroid they found a way to put a positive spin on the idea of ice in the veins: they borrowed the French term to describe the quality of someone who keeps their composure under strainâ€”that is, not a â€œcold fishâ€ or â€œicicleâ€ but someone who is cool as a cucumber.

Word Family Quiz

Rearrange the letters to reveal a sangfroid relative that means â€œmarked by eager hopefulness; confidently optimisticâ€: UIGSENAN

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