The nouns sewage and sewerage both concern the garbage that we put down sinks and flush down toilets—the system of pipes that carries away this garbage make up the sewers and the garbage in the sewers is sewage. While sewage is the liquid garbage in our sewers, sewerage describes systems of sewers and the processes that sewage goes through in […]

These two verbs have opposite meanings, but not based on their prefixes pre- and pro-, as you might expect. Scribe means to write down, so both prescribe and proscribe refer to the actions of laws, rules, and orders, or sometimes suggestions. Prescribe means telling what should be done, and proscribe means telling what should not be done […]

Stanch is merely an alternative spelling of staunch. The preferred spelling is staunch. Staunch has two very different meanings. As a verb, staunch means “to stop the flow of (liquid)”—using pressure, or by blocking the flow; you cannot use staunch for turning off a water faucet. “To staunch the flow of blood from a wound” […]

These adverbs are all derived from the word respect, but respect has a variety of meanings. Here, in respectably and respectfully, respect means honor or esteem while in respectively, respect means considering or relating to. Respectably means “in a manner that one can respect (honor or esteem)”—i.e. in an able-to-be-respected manner: You should always dress respectably […]

These words are two forms of the verb to ride—Ridden is the past-participle and rode is the simple past form: (a) We rode into town yesterday. (b) We have ridden into town several times. (c) This horse has been ridden too many times. (d) The most often ridden ride at the amusement park is the roller coaster. […]