An alternative to looking up definitions of new words as vocabulary expansion, is to choose near-synonyms and have a discussion about what sets the words apart from one another.
Ask students to find the difference between the following word pairs:
- Abstain and refrain
- Amateur and a novice
- Artist and artisan
- Aware and conscious
- Bashful and modest
- Bravery and bravado
- Déjà vu and precognition
- Discriminate and distinguish
- Envy and jealousy
- Eldest and oldest
- Elude and evade
- Fluid and liquid
- Further and farther
- Fewer and less
- Frugal and stingy
- Grieve and mourn
- Genuine and authentic
- Hanged and hung
- Hear and listen
- Human and humane
- Irony and sarcasm
- Imply and infer
- Lend and loan
- Lie and lay
- Linger and loiter
- Moral and ethical
- Myth and legend
- perseverance, persistence
- prejudice, bias
- prelude, overture
- pride, vanity
- principal, principle
- process, procedure
- reasonable and rational
- Repentance and regret
- scrupulous, conscientious
- serf, slave
- silent and taciturn
- strut and swagger
- unique and unusual
- variety and diversity
- wander and stray
- warn, caution
- will, volition
- wit, humor
- witness, see
- worth, value
Some ways to compare include:
- Connotation and denotation
- Attitude difference
- part of speech
- intention
- audience
- value
- root word
- degree
- kind
Janine Schaub 