Both of these nouns refer to certain basic materials of a sort.  Bullion refers to any precious metal when it is gathered together (not in the ground)—and refers to it as the raw material, not the object it is in: He was saving bars of gold bullion to use when economy collapses.How much bullion is there […]

These words have different origins and meanings. Born means “having come into being,” like a baby coming into the world: These days many people leave the places where they were born when they grow up.Her idea for the book was born during a conversation with a friend. Borne, in contrast, is the past participle of the […]

These confusing words all have completely different meanings.  In brief, a boar is an adult male pig—of any pig species.  A boor is a rude and annoying person. And bore has two meanings, each with both a noun and a verb: Bore-1 (verb):  to be uninteresting; or to make a person feel uninterestedBore-1 (noun):  an uninteresting person […]

These two verbs are related by the root -sect, which means “cut” or “divide” (as in separate) and also appears in English words such as sectarian (divisive) and sectional (divisible).Bisect, predictably, means “divide in two, through the middle”: A line that bisects something, should divide it into two equal halves. The two halves should be […]

Beside and Besides are different parts-of-speech, with several different meanings. The quickest way to get their meanings is to look at some examples.  Beside (used as a preposition):Please stand beside me so I will know you are there. (Beside means next to)This movie ranks beside the best thrillers ever made. (Beside means equal to)Your offer […]