Wary means cautious or suspicious; it describes a person or animal who is watching for possible danger: Be wary of emails from strangers! Weary means tired, in two senses—“feeling low energy after labor” and “feeling that one has had too much of an experience and wanting no more”: We were weary after a day of […]

The difference between you’re, your, and yore is easy to remember. You’re is the contraction of you are; the apostrophe stands for the missing letter a; thus, you can insert the words you are in place of you’re in the following sentences without affecting the meaning: You’re my best friend You’re late to the meeting again! Your is the possessive […]

A yoke is a very specific object—the device used to attach an animal, such as an ox or horse, to a plow or wagon. Yoke is also a verb for “to put a yoke on”: Please yoke the ox to this wagon. As such, yoke is a popular metaphor for oppression, slavery, and heavy burdens: American […]

The nouns, zenith and nadir, describe the highest and lowest points on a sphere, parabola, trajectory, or cycle; the zenith is the highest point in the sky—directly overhead, or the top of any curve or trajectory, while the nadir is the lowest point on the celestial sphere (the whole sky visible from Earth), or the lowest point on […]