catalyst • \ˈka-tə-ləst\ • noun
1. (chemistry) a substance that initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected
2. something that causes an important event to happen
The word catalyst has appeared in 272 New York Times articles in the past year, including on May 2 in “Kenneth Bae, Longest-Held U.S. Prisoner of North Korea, Reveals Details of Ordeal” by Rick Gladstone:
Kenneth Bae says his North Korean captors interrogated him up to 15 hours a day for the first four weeks of his incarceration and yelled with impatience until he wrote a confession to their liking. But they would later allow Mr. Bae to read his Bible and permit him to pray.
… Mr. Bae also wrote that he had known about a trip to North Korea in January 2014 by Dennis Rodman, the former basketball player and a friend of Mr. Kim’s, but wrote that he only later learned that Mr. Rodman had disparaged Mr. Bae in a CNN interview, rather than calling for his release. Mr. Rodman’s remarks, for which he later apologized, incited outrage by Mr. Bae’s relatives in the United States and indirectly galvanized publicity over his case.
“I thank Dennis Rodman for being a catalyst for my release,” Mr. Bae said in an interview with CNN broadcast on Monday. “He brought attention to my plight.”
Think you know “catalyst”? Quiz yourself:
The Word of the Day and the quiz question have been provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary.