The nouns, temerity and timidity, have opposite meanings, though both describe the behavior of people or animals: Temerity describes bold, daring, and especially presumptuous behavior. Timidity describes shy, fearful, or hesitant behavior: Caleb showed shocking temerity in asking his professor for a higher grade. Beth’s timidity was obvious; she seemed afraid to even look at people or introduce […]

Just about everyone knows about these confusing words—let’s review them so that you can easily remember the difference. They’re is the easiest to remember; it is a contraction of “they are”. In contractions, the apostrophe always stands for a missing letter. There means “that place (over there).” It is part of a family of words: here, […]

Vigorous, which means energetic, is a common word, while vigorish, a kind of financial charge, is rarely used. Vigorous means energetic—for living things. An explosion is not “vigorous.” Young people are usually vigorous, if healthy. Vigorous can describe activities that use a lot of energy, or people who have energy and health stored-up. We knew Bianca would […]

The adjectives, triumphal and triumphant, have close meanings, but are different, and triumphant is much more commonly used than triumphal. Triumphant means victorious (“having victory”) while triumphal means “relating to victory”: The rebels were triumphant; they drove the government forces from the city. They celebrated their victory with a triumphal dinner. Of course, in many cases, both words could […]