Category: Vocabulary

Language is the system we use to speak, write, and sign (manually) to express ourselves within our social groups. Distinctive to our species, it gives us a powerful means to inform, play, imagine, persuade, and release (e.g., our feelings). While a specific number can vary, many estimates suggest that English includes more than one million …

Many of us can agree that envy and jealousy are typically undesirable emotions: The words' mere utterance often indicates that something might be amiss. At the same time, some English speakers might sometimes mistake one word for the other or simply use them interchangeably. We'll explain their differences here. That way, none of us will …

We use words constantly to express ourselves and exchange thoughts with others. We write, speak, hear, read, and listen to words. Some research suggests the average person can speak from 4,000 to 7,000 words in a day. All words have origins that might date from days to millennia since their inception. The English language is …

The subject of transmitted disease became relevant for all of humanity in late 2019 with the onset of COVID-19. As the disease spread and infected people all over the world, the word pandemic also gained prominence in our daily communications. English includes different words to convey the geographic scale of disease: endemic, epidemic, and pandemic. …

The words efficacy and efficiency are so similar in how they are spelled, pronounced, and used that they can be confused for each other. There is a difference, though. If you've ever wondered how to distinguish efficacy from efficiency, we'll leave you with a greater understanding in today's post. The Meaning of the Word Efficacy …

The last couple of years have seen a greater emphasis on how we refer to and write about cultural identity in a wonderfully diverse country such as the U.S. In this discussion, we'll share some current style guidance you can consider. When we seek reinforcement for certain style items at GrammarBook.com, we most often refer …

Weather, whether, and wether are homophones, meaning they sound the same but have different meanings. Do you know how to use and spell them correctly? If you aren't 100% sure, this post is for you. Let's look at the distinctions among them by starting with the word you might use the most often. The Meaning …

Bare and bear are two commonly confused words. They sound the same and their spellings differ only by transposed letters, but they have different definitions so it's easy to use one when you might mean the other. Today we'll look at the distinctions between bare and bear and how you can use the words correctly. …

Suppose you wake with the strange sensation that you have just been in a desert made of brown sugar in a room where it was raining toasted marshmallows. Was all that sugar something you had dreamed, or had you dreamt of something sweet? If you're someone who focuses on improving your mastery of American English …

Do you ever have a hard time separating the one-word already from the phrase all ready? These words sound the same when spoken aloud unless you conscientiously emphasize the pause between them. Given that, it's easy to see why people might confuse them. In today's post we'll look at the differences so you can use …