Convince and Persuade have similar but distinct meanings. Convince means “to cause someone to believe that something is true”: Darwin’s work convinced many people that human beings evolved from apes. The stem -vince comes from a Latin verb meaning, “to conquer.”Persuade, in contrast, means, “to cause someone to do something through argument or evidence”: Nothing […]

Congenial and genial both mean “friendly and pleasant”—referring not only to people, but also to places, events, atmospheres, etc: A congenial workplace makes for happier workers!A genial person is usually happy to meet new people. These words—both adjectives—can be used in all of the same places, with no difference in meaning, except that congenial, with […]

The words connote and denote both describe the relationships between words and their meanings. But they each describe a different kind of meaning.  Words denote what they “refer to,” “represent,” or “point to”; the object of the verb denote is a referent, or denotation. Words may also connote some emotional or social value; often, words simply […]

The important difference here is between confident, an adjective meaning “sure of oneself,” and confidant(e), a noun meaning “a person that one confides in.”To confide, means “to tell a person private or secret things”; it implies trust. The word confide breaks down in to con-fide, which means “with trust” or “with faith”; you can see […]

These words can seem confusing because they refer to the same relationship, but from different, complementary, perspectives. To see this clearly, consider the following sentences, which all have the same meaning: An opera is composed of many elements. An opera comprises many elements. Many elements compose an opera. Many elements are comprised by an opera. In other words, […]