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EndeavororEndeavour

UK /ɪnˈdɛv.ə/US /ɛnˈdɛv.ɚ/

British contracts are full of endeavours: reasonable endeavours, all reasonable endeavours and best endeavours, three phrases whose exact weight has been argued over in court for decades. American contracts use best efforts for the same idea, so a lawyer who sees endeavour in a draft can be fairly sure it was written in London.

The word itself came from a French phrase, se mettre en devoir, to put oneself in duty, which is why it still carries a sense of honourable effort rather than mere trying. The space shuttle Endeavour was named, with the British spelling, after Captain Cook's ship.

Every past word of the day is kept in the archive. New word and new puzzle at midnight, UK time.

Daily quiz · today's puzzle, the same for everyone

Five rounds. Guess the word.

Type your answer for the first three rounds; either the British or the American spelling counts. Three tries each, with a hint after every miss. Rollover is at midnight UK time.

  1. Round 1: reverse definition

    A ghostly apparition, a phantom.

    noun, 7 letters

  2. Round 2: reverse definition

    Any activity designed to develop or hone a skill or ability.

    noun, 8 letters

  3. Round 3: British spelling

    Type the British spelling of "pediatric".

    10 letters

  4. Round 4: word origin

    Which language does "portfolio" ultimately come from?

  5. Round 5: meaning

    Which of these is a meaning of "proceed"?

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Business vocabulary

224 entries. Data built 2026-09-17.

Definitions and etymology from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Synonyms from Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0), derived from Princeton WordNet. Spelling variants from VarCon / English Speller Database. Word frequencies from wordfreq by Robyn Speer (CC BY-SA 4.0). Usage notes and example sentences marked as ours are original content.