aerie

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 26, 2026 is: aerie • \AIR-ee\  • noun Aerie refers to the nest of a bird (such as an eagle or hawk) built high up on a cliff or on the top of a mountain. It can also be used for a room or building built high up so that people inside can see things happening below them. // From the lighthouse's aerie tourists can get a bird's-eye view of the rocky coastline. See the entry > Examples: “Their eaglet is expected to hatch around April 21. In the meantime, audience members tuning in will likely see at least one eagle at the nest. To keep up with home improvements, the majestic birds often arrive home bearing sticks and grass to add to their aerie.” — Mary Ann Lickteig, Seven Days (Burlington, Vermont), 8 Apr. 2026 Did you know? English poet John Milton put a variant of aerie to good use in Paradise Lost (1667), writing, “… there the eagle and the stork / On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build.” But Milton wasn’t the first to use the term, which comes to us via Medieval Latin and Old French and probably traces to an earlier Latin word, ager, meaning “field.” English speakers had been employing aerie as a word for a bird’s nest for more than a century when he penned those words. Eventually, aerie was applied to human dwellings as well as birds’ nests. At first, this sense referred to dwellings nestled high up in mountains or hills. These days, you’re also likely to hear high-rise city apartments or offices referred to as “aeries.”