Repertoire - plus, Scratching the Surface of ‘From Scratch’

[Merriam-Webster]( WORD OF THE DAY September 11, 2019 repertoire [Audio pronunciation]( noun | REP-er-twahr Definition 1 a : a list or supply of dramas, operas, pieces, or parts that a company or person is prepared to perform b : a supply of skills, devices, or [expedients]( broadly : [amount]( [supply]( c : a list or supply of capabilities 2 a : the complete list or supply of dramas, operas, or musical works available for performance b : the complete list or supply of skills, devices, or ingredients used in a particular field, occupation, or practice Scroll down for more about repertoire TRENDING NOW: [what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander]( [prorogue]( [the]( [freddo]( [SEE ALL [>]]( PEOPLE ARE READING [Scratching the Surface of ‘From Scratch’]( ['Adverse' or 'Averse'?]( [Calling In a New ‘Brigade’]( [The Good, The Bad, & The Semantically Imprecise - 9/6/19]( WORD GAMES AND QUIZZES: WEEKLY CHALLENGE [Back to School Quiz]( Pop quiz! [PLAY NOW]( Nailed this quiz? We have plenty more to try! [TAKE ME THERE [>]]( Did You Know? The Late Latin noun repertorium, meaning "list," has given us two words that can be used to speak of the broad range of things that someone or something can do. One is [repertory]( perhaps most commonly known as a word for a company that presents several different plays, operas, or other works at one theater, or the theater where such works are performed. Repertoire, which comes from repertorium via French, once meant the same thing as repertory but later came to refer to the range of skills that a person has, such as the different pitches a baseball pitcher can throw or the particular dishes that are a chef's specialty. Examples of REPERTOIRE "But the make-or-break element of any interior Mexican restaurant is its [mole]( repertoire, and I was curious to see how these sauces would turn out. My favorite was a light, sweet, chile-based mole served with chunky butternut squash topped with sweet-potato crisps." — [Patricia Sharpe, The Texas Monthly, June 2019]( "For decades, immunologists had reasoned that the [T-cell]( surveillance system might be able to detect and kill cancer cells. But, unlike infected cells, cancerous ones tend to be so genetically similar to normal cells, with such a similar repertoire of proteins, that they're hard for even T cells to pick out of a crowd." — [Siddhartha Mukherjee, The New Yorker, 22 July 2019]( Test Your Vocabulary Fill in the blanks to complete a word that refers to an area that matches a person's skills or expertise: w _ _ e _ _ o _ se. [VIEW THE ANSWER [>]]( MORE WORD FUN: [WORD GAMES [>]]( [TRENDING NOW [>]]( [WORDS AT PLAY [>]]( FOLLOW US: [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( SHARE: [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [View this email in a web browser]( You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day. [Unsubscribe from Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day]( [Manage your subscription settings]( Merriam-Webster, Inc. 47 Federal Street, P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA, 01102, USA [www.merriam-webster.com]( | [Privacy Policy]( © 2019 by Merriam-Webster, Inc.