Choose Your Words (Beginning With F, G, H)
Caught between words? Make the right choice.
FFFFFFFFFF
facetious/ factious/ fatuous
The word facetious describes something you don't take seriously. Remove the middle "e," and factious describes a dissenting group. And finally there's fatuous, which is a fancy way to say dumb.
farther/ further
Use the word farther when you mean physical distance, like if you run farther than your friend. Use further for basically everything else. Further refers to abstractions like ideas or thoughts.
faze/ phase
To faze is to disturb, bother, or embarrass, but a phase is a stage or step. It could faze your family if your princess phase lasts well into your college years.
ferment/ foment
When change is a brewin', remember: to ferment is to cause a chemical change to food or drink, like turning grapes into wine, but to foment is to stir up trouble, like turning a group of people into an angry mob.
fictional/ fictitious/ fictive
Fictional, fictive, and fictitious all branch off the "fiction" tree, but fictional is literary, fictive is specific, and fictitious is just plain fake.
figuratively/ literally
Figuratively means metaphorically, and literally describes something that actually happened. If you say that a guitar solo literally blew your head off, your head should not be attached to your body.
flair/ flare
Flair is a talent for something, like what the pro-wrestler Nature Boy Ric Flair had back in the day. Flare is on a candle or the shape of bell-bottoms that kids rocked back in the heyday of wrastlin’.
flaunt/ flout
Flaunt is to show off, but flout is to ignore the rules. Rebels do both — they flaunt their new pink motorcycles by popping a wheelie, and flout the law by running a red light.
flounder/ founder
To flounder is to struggle, but to founder is to sink like a stone and fail. Both are fun as nouns, not so fun as verbs.
formerly/ formally
Formerly is something that happened before, like when a pop star changed his name to a squiggle, he became known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. But formally comes from formal, or fancy, like the prom.
formidable/ formative
Formidable describes a foe you’re slightly afraid of, but formative describes what formed you. Perhaps a formidable gymteacher scared the pants off you during your formative years in grade school, and now you’re a world-class athlete. (Or a bookworm, depending on how you react to formidable foes.)
fortunate/ fortuitous
Get our your lucky rabbit’s foot! Fortunate is lucky, but fortuitous means by chance or accident. Silly rabbit, these words aren’t the same.
GGGGGG
gibe/ jibe
To gibe is to sneer or heckle, but to jibe is to agree. Funny thing is, though, jibe is an alternate spelling of gibe, so surprise! People get them mixed up.
gig/ jig
Gig with a hard "g" is a job. Jig, on the other hand, is a dance. The kind a band might do when they land a gig headlining Madison Square Garden.
gorilla/ guerrilla
You might see a gorilla in a zoo, but a guerrilla (sometimes spelled with one “r”), is someone who belongs to a group of independent fighters. If you remember your high school Spanish, you’ll know the difference.
grisly/ gristly/ grizzly
Blood, guts, and man-eaters, oh my! Faint of heart turn back now! Grisly means relating to horror or disgust, gristly means related to gristle or cartilage, and grizzly is a big ol' bear. That can eat you.
HHHHHHHHHHH
hale/ hail
Hale describes someone hearty and healthy. Rarr. All hail the next word! To hail is to greet enthusiastically. And when it hails, ice falls from the sky and hits those hale people on the head.
healthful/ healthy
Healthful describes something that will create good health, like apples, yoga, and fresh air. Healthy describes someone fit, trim, and utterly not sick.
hero/ protagonist
A hero is the firefighter who pulls you out of a burning car. The protagonist is the main character in the story you write about it.
historic/ historical
Something historic has a great importance to human history. Something historical is related to the past. People with big egos get them mixed up if they say they had a historic family background. Unless they helped win a war, it was probably just historical.
hoard/ horde
To hoard is to squirrel stuff away, like gold bricks or candy wrappers. A horde is a crowd of people, usually, but it can also be a gang of mosquitoes, robots, or rabid zombie kittens.
homonym/ homophone/ homograph
This word set can be confusing, even for word geeks. Let's start with the basics. A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word but has a different sound and a different meaning.
hone/ home
To hone is to sharpen a knife or perfect a skill. Home is where you live, where your stuff is, is where the heart is, and all that.
.......................................................................
You may also like 😊😊😊😊
Newspaper Vocabulary
Words of '-ism'
Barron's GRE
Fantastic 25 (Words)
A-E Vocabulary
F-L Vocabulary
M-Q Vocabulary
R-Z Vocabulary
Poetry Terms
FFFFFFFFFF
facetious/ factious/ fatuous
The word facetious describes something you don't take seriously. Remove the middle "e," and factious describes a dissenting group. And finally there's fatuous, which is a fancy way to say dumb.
farther/ further
Use the word farther when you mean physical distance, like if you run farther than your friend. Use further for basically everything else. Further refers to abstractions like ideas or thoughts.
faze/ phase
To faze is to disturb, bother, or embarrass, but a phase is a stage or step. It could faze your family if your princess phase lasts well into your college years.
ferment/ foment
When change is a brewin', remember: to ferment is to cause a chemical change to food or drink, like turning grapes into wine, but to foment is to stir up trouble, like turning a group of people into an angry mob.
fictional/ fictitious/ fictive
Fictional, fictive, and fictitious all branch off the "fiction" tree, but fictional is literary, fictive is specific, and fictitious is just plain fake.
figuratively/ literally
Figuratively means metaphorically, and literally describes something that actually happened. If you say that a guitar solo literally blew your head off, your head should not be attached to your body.
flair/ flare
Flair is a talent for something, like what the pro-wrestler Nature Boy Ric Flair had back in the day. Flare is on a candle or the shape of bell-bottoms that kids rocked back in the heyday of wrastlin’.
flaunt/ flout
Flaunt is to show off, but flout is to ignore the rules. Rebels do both — they flaunt their new pink motorcycles by popping a wheelie, and flout the law by running a red light.
flounder/ founder
To flounder is to struggle, but to founder is to sink like a stone and fail. Both are fun as nouns, not so fun as verbs.
formerly/ formally
Formerly is something that happened before, like when a pop star changed his name to a squiggle, he became known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. But formally comes from formal, or fancy, like the prom.
formidable/ formative
Formidable describes a foe you’re slightly afraid of, but formative describes what formed you. Perhaps a formidable gymteacher scared the pants off you during your formative years in grade school, and now you’re a world-class athlete. (Or a bookworm, depending on how you react to formidable foes.)
fortunate/ fortuitous
Get our your lucky rabbit’s foot! Fortunate is lucky, but fortuitous means by chance or accident. Silly rabbit, these words aren’t the same.
GGGGGG
gibe/ jibe
To gibe is to sneer or heckle, but to jibe is to agree. Funny thing is, though, jibe is an alternate spelling of gibe, so surprise! People get them mixed up.
gig/ jig
Gig with a hard "g" is a job. Jig, on the other hand, is a dance. The kind a band might do when they land a gig headlining Madison Square Garden.
gorilla/ guerrilla
You might see a gorilla in a zoo, but a guerrilla (sometimes spelled with one “r”), is someone who belongs to a group of independent fighters. If you remember your high school Spanish, you’ll know the difference.
grisly/ gristly/ grizzly
Blood, guts, and man-eaters, oh my! Faint of heart turn back now! Grisly means relating to horror or disgust, gristly means related to gristle or cartilage, and grizzly is a big ol' bear. That can eat you.
HHHHHHHHHHH
hale/ hail
Hale describes someone hearty and healthy. Rarr. All hail the next word! To hail is to greet enthusiastically. And when it hails, ice falls from the sky and hits those hale people on the head.
healthful/ healthy
Healthful describes something that will create good health, like apples, yoga, and fresh air. Healthy describes someone fit, trim, and utterly not sick.
hero/ protagonist
A hero is the firefighter who pulls you out of a burning car. The protagonist is the main character in the story you write about it.
historic/ historical
Something historic has a great importance to human history. Something historical is related to the past. People with big egos get them mixed up if they say they had a historic family background. Unless they helped win a war, it was probably just historical.
hoard/ horde
To hoard is to squirrel stuff away, like gold bricks or candy wrappers. A horde is a crowd of people, usually, but it can also be a gang of mosquitoes, robots, or rabid zombie kittens.
homonym/ homophone/ homograph
This word set can be confusing, even for word geeks. Let's start with the basics. A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word but has a different sound and a different meaning.
hone/ home
To hone is to sharpen a knife or perfect a skill. Home is where you live, where your stuff is, is where the heart is, and all that.
.......................................................................
You may also like 😊😊😊😊
Newspaper Vocabulary
Words of '-ism'
Barron's GRE
Fantastic 25 (Words)
A-E Vocabulary
F-L Vocabulary
M-Q Vocabulary
R-Z Vocabulary
Poetry Terms
Comments
Post a Comment