Axel and Axle are two different nouns, although you are more likely to see axel as a misspelling of axle, than as its own word, because the real word axel has a very specific meaning.Axle, the more common word, refers to a (usually metal) shaft—shaped like a straight pipe or rod—that goes through the centers […]

Aural and Oral are unrelated even though they both concern sound. They come from different roots.  Aural means “related to ears or hearing” and oral means “related to mouths or speaking”. Let’s take a look at the usage of aural and oral in a sentence: I hope you don’t get an aural (ear) infection from swimming.Living […]

Arrant and Errant have very close but different meanings. They began as different spellings of the same word, with the meanings of errant—(1) wandering and (2) wrong, as in sinful, mischievous, or disobedient—and these are still the meanings of errant; to err means “to make a mistake” and it also meant “to travel” long ago, […]

Mistrust and Distrust have essentially the same meaning: “to have a lack of confidence or faith in someone or something.”  Sometimes, however, distrust may sound stronger than mistrust—mistrust can mean “partial distrust,” which may be based on a gut feeling, while distrust may be based more on a evidence and a justified belief about someone’s or something’s […]

These two words, Lightning and Lightening, have very different meanings!  Lightning is a noun or adjective for the powerful flash of electricity that happens during some rainstorms and thunderstorms: A flash of lightning lit up the darkness of the storm. As an adjective, lightning means “very fast and brief”: The kung-fu master had a lightning fast […]