Ripped from the Headlines: January 2026: New Year, New Words: Vocabulary for January

The annual cycle begins in January. Annual comes from the Latin annus, meaning "year." Beyond describing many events that recur every year, you'll also see this term used frequently in botany: Annual plants die each winter and must regrow from seeds, whereas perennial plants regrow from the same roots each spring.

After Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat, Martin Luther King Jr. helped to organize a boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system. The boycott lasted for 381 days and ended when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. Charles Boycott was an Irish land agent in 1880 who refused to lower rents for farmers. He was shunned by protesting farmers, making his name a household word around the world.

New Year's Eve is known for its convivial parties. Convivial is a perfect adjective to describe festive and friendly gatherings. Convivium is Latin for "a feast" and is built from the words con and vivere, meaning literally "to live together."

The last seconds of a year are traditionally marked with a countdown, often with an assembled group shouting out the numbers from 10 to one before cheering, blowing horns, popping corks, and generally celebrating the start of a new calendar year. The most famous countdown happens in New York's Times Square, where a huge mirrored ball descends to mark the arrival of midnight on December 31.

January is the month in which some of the coldest temperatures are recorded in the northern hemisphere, as frigid Arctic air moves down into lower latitudes. Frigus means "cold" in Latin, and it's also the root of refrigerator.

A number of species that live in regions with harsh winters hibernate, sleeping deeply for long periods and slowing their metabolisms down to conserve energy when there's no food available. Evidence from a site in Spain suggests that our ancestors may have done so as well: 400,000-year-old bones show evidence that Neanderthals likely stayed in their caves, sleeping for long periods during the winter.

Every fours years, after a presidential election, an inauguration is held in Washington, D.C., in January. At the inauguration, the new or reelected president is sworn in, marking the start of a four-year term. Inauguration, meaning "a ceremony marking a beginning," comes from the Latin augurare; an augur was a fortune teller who would read omens and declare that a time was right to begin a task or project.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday is January 15. The third Monday of January is a federal holiday celebrating MLK. The civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968, organized a number of high-profile protests and acts of nonviolent resistance, culminating in the March on Washington in 1963. Taking his inspiration in part from Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi, King advocated for the power of nonviolence in the face of oppression and injustice.

January 14 is Ratification Day, marking the congressional proclamation ratifying the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that ended the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain. Ratus means "valid" in Latin, so to ratify something is to validate or legally certify it.

Many people make resolutions at the beginning of the year, pledging to work out more, learn to play an instrument, or finally start writing that novel they've been thinking about. Exercising more and eating healthily top the list of the most common promises that people make themselves, and gyms sell more memberships in January than in any other month.

When the holiday revelry finally concludes in January — wrapping up a five-week period often characterized by lots of eating and drinking — many people are secretly glad to get back to their regular routine. Reveler is French for "to make merry."

The 13th of January is National Skeptics Day, celebrating people who are doubtful, suspicious, or who require concrete proof before believing in something. (Note that some doubters celebrate it on October 13.) The first skeptics were Greek philosophers in the third century BCE, led by Pyrro, who doubted the possibility of truly knowing about anything for certain. The Greek verb skeptesthai means "to look out" or "to consider," and it's related to the root of scope.

January 18 is National Thesaurus Day, celebrating everyone's favorite book of synonyms. Writers have long relied on these reference books to keep their prose lively and varied, and digital versions mean that these essential tools are as close as your phone. Thesaurus comes from a Greek word meaning "treasury" or "storehouse." Our favorite tribute to these tomes is the comedian Steven Wright's immortal line: "What's another word for thesaurus?"

There are many traditions surrounding the celebration of the New Year. Many people stay up until midnight to celebrate the moment a new year begins. Others eat black-eyed peas, a food thought to bring good luck, on New Year's Day. Tradition comes from the Latin verb tradere, meaning "to hand over" or "to deliver."

Janus, the Roman god for whom January is named, was the god of doors, gateways, and transitions. His two faces point in opposite directions, signifying the passage of time and dualities like life and death or beginning and end. In an election year, another kind of transition happens in January: the transfer of power from one presidential administration to another.