Today’s word of the day is unctuous. It’s spelled U-N-C-T-U-O-U-S. Unctuous is an adjective that means insincerely smooth. The Latin word for anoint, Unguere (oon GWAY ray) is where unctuous’s journey begins. But a better way to understand the word’s origin is to recall that things were often anointed with oily or greasy substances. As time went by, unctuous came to mean oily, and it later referred to people who behaved in a slick manner. Think of someone trying to win your favor with false flattery. The salesman had an unctuous quality to him that made him good at his job. I wound up buying five hundred acres of Florida swampland. The spelling of unctuous is U-N-C-T-U-O-U-S.

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