Long and exotic words (like defenestration or sesquipedalian) are often more fascinating than useful. By comparison, this list offers words that can enrich a conversation without sounding ridiculous.
Definition:
having or showing simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings toward something or someone
Words it might replace:
conflicted; uncertain
Example:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Oregon residents expressed support for small-scale farmers across demographic groups, she said. About 83% of respondents had positive views of small farms, while only 16% were ambivalent and 1% had negative associations.
—Mateusz Perkowski, Capital Press (Salem, Oregon), 21 July 2023
Definition:
to take in or up; to receive into the mind and retain
Words it might replace:
drink; sip; absorb
Example:
From noon until 9 p.m., visitors can … browse more than 80 vendors booths, imbibe a beer or two at the beer gardens and listen to musical acts such as 1990s alternative rock group the Spin Doctors, set to perform at 9 p.m.
Jared McNett, Sioux City Journal, 20 July 2023
Definition:
intense and usually openly displayed anger
Words it might replace:
anger; rage
Example:
In fact, many cities are converting tennis courts for pickleball use, but the sport can draw the ire of neighbors who detest the high-pitched sound that plastic wiffle balls make when hit by a racket.
Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle Online, 21 July 2023
Definition:
an inadequate supply
Words it might replace:
lack; scarcity; undersupply
Example:
The dearth of taller trees to filter sunlight has also accelerated the growth of low-lying wax myrtles and palmettos—"more brush, which contributes to more fire threat"—and the abnormally dry spring weather has turned it into a kindling-dry powder keg.
—Elizabeth Koh, The Miami Herald_, 5 June 2019
Definition:
to understand or explain the sense or intention of usually in a particular way or with respect to a given set of circumstances
Words it might replace:
explain, interpret; spell out
Example:
So NFTs aren't strange or novel because they make appeals to value, provenance, and ownership via collective fantasies of paperwork. That's old news. They feel strange and novel because normal people don't usually construe monetary value in mere references to everyday things, like a cash-register receipt, or computer data.
—Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 4 February 2022
Definition:
characterized by good-humored cheerfulness and conviviality
Words it might replace:
gleeful; jolly; merry
Example:
And on Saturday, Minns, now 22, once again took his place behind the keyboard on the nearly 100-year-old calliope blasting out jovial circus tunes to the crowds that lined the streets during the longest running and only circus parade left in the country. The festival this year is celebrating its 60th season.
—Carson Gerber, Rushville Republican, 21 July 2019
Definition:
to move or travel back and forth between two points : to vary between opposing beliefs, feelings, or theories
Words it might replace:
fluctuate; vary
Example:
Most novels are narrated in the past tense, some in the present tense, but a few, like The Constant Gardener, oscillate between the two.
—John Mullan, How Novels Work, 2006
Definition:
difficult to comprehend
Words it might replace:
deep; profound; academic
Example:
Today's physics breakthroughs tend to be so abstruse that summarizing them is like trying to explain the financial-derivatives market to a three-year-old.
National Review, 16 April 2018
Definition:
having a sullen and gloomy disposition
Words it might replace:
bleak; gloomy; somber
Example:
Gradually, family and friends noticed a change in his behavior. Over time, he transformed from an "amiable youth, happy and gifted in person, in mind, and character" to morose and preoccupied.
—Scott Valentine, Military Images, Summer 2023
Definition:
a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something (such as an ancient city or a condition or practice) vanished or lost
Words it might replace:
trace; shadow; relic
Example:
People, including former staff, enjoyed lunch on the lawns near the stone wall, the last vestige of the Langley Cottage Hospital. That was the first hospital in the community built in the 1940s, later replaced by the current building.
Heather Colpitts, Langley Advance Times, 20 July 2023
