Vocabulary

Some words are like the vase-and-faces illusion, forever making your mind flip between what they mean and what you like to think they mean In my school years, I thought ‘bedraggled’ meant ‘raggled’ from sleep or from lying in bed. I always pronounced the word ‘BED-RAGGled’. ‘Raggled’ evoked a bleary-eyed…

Boost Your English Vocabulary: A Comprehensive Review of “Word Power Made Easy” and Comparisons with Other Books — Are you looking to expand your vocabulary and improve your command over the English language? Look no further than “Word Power Made Easy”, the best Vocabulary building book by renowned author Norman Lewis. …

Barely there — I have a paucity of ideas for this opening paragraph. It’s 11:20 pm and I’ve been up since about 7:00 am. I guess you could say I have a paucity of mental energy at the moment. Word: paucity Part of speech: noun Pronunciation: PAW-sih-tee, /ˈpɔ·sɪ·t̬i/ Origin: Latin, old French Meaning…

Share your list of the words you despise — People who don’t know how to write well love to use big words. But good writers never use a big word when a simple word will do. Sometimes you do need to use a big or unusual word. But do you really have to use any of these words? Here’s a list of words I hate with a passion: 1. Anodyne …

Apathy’s more experienced cousin — Having a low motivation day is part of being human. However, if you just can’t find the emotional or physical energy to complete tasks, even when there’s a reward at stake, it could be more than just apathy or low motivation. Word: avolition[1] Part of speech: noun Pronunciation: a-voe-LIH-shun Origin…

I propose we eliminate the word strategy from our working vocabulary. The poor word has become tired, abused, misunderstood and confusing. Try instead: to say tactic “Our tactics for approaching this customer are…..” to say goal “Our goal is to deliver $100 million in net profits by 2025” to say aspiration “Our aspiration is to lead our industry” Where you mean a deliberate set of choices with an intended objective, use an action-oriented verb and a clear, measurable expression of intent — “To improve our relative share of the petrochemical market by 5%, we are going to engage customer X with offering Y and displace our competitor by providing 1, 2 and 3.

Improve the quality of your writing using these. Definitions included. 1. Victoriously Meaning: Successfully, prosperously Example: “We victoriously passed all of the exams!” 2. Morosely Meaning: Sadly, wistfully Example: “That poem was morosely passionate and we enjoyed listening to it very much.” 3. Promptly Meaning: Immediately, quickly Example: “The manager will promptly be out here to serve you.”

Select and use them so you won’t lose them — “Putting words to use, preferably in some interesting way, is the best way of ensuring they are added to long-term memory. It is the principle popularly known as ‘Use it or lose it’.” (Thornbury, 2006:25) You can study vocabulary lists, check words in a dictionary, highlight them on Medium articles…

Have you heard of these ones before? 1. Hold back Meaning: To prevent yourself from doing/saying something. Example: “My sister was constantly pestering me… I had to hold back from yelling in retaliation.” 2. Get back at Meaning: To take revenge Example: “It’s very difficult for many people to not get back at people who’ve insulted them.” 3. Run out (of) Meaning: To have none left Example: “We ran out of pizza two hours ago and need to order more.”