Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

This morning, I got a word-of-the-day e-mail from Worknik. It had the word meliorism which, it seems, means two very different things. The unsurprising meanings relate to a doctrine, principle, or process of improvement. The surprising meaning is “A pit-like structure created by an impacting meteorite.”

Here is the content of the e-mail:

meliorism
Wordnik: meliorism
(noun) A pit-like structure created by an impacting meteorite.
(noun) The improvement of society by regulated practical means: opposed to the passive principle of both pessimism and optimism.
(noun) The doctrine that the world is neither the worst nor the best possible, but that it is capable of improvement: a mean between theoretical pessimism and optimism.

My surprise was not unfounded. Even following the link to Wordnik, the pit-like structure does not appear. It seems this definition is a bug, a joke, or a typo isolated to the e-mail.

But this led me to another surprising –ism. I decided to look up meteorism to see if that word exists and if it has anything to do with impacting meteorites. It does exist, but with surprising meaning. It is flatulent bloating. Now there is a useful word. Talk about making an impact!

[edit: added the following]
A response to my e-mail to Wordnik confirms that the "pit-like structure" definition actually belongs to the word astrobleme. I am confident I will find more occasion to use meteorism than both astrobleme and meliorism combined.