These two adjectives both describe diseases, referring to the way in which a person can get a disease.  Contagious means “can be spread from person to person.” Infectious means “can give a person an infection; can infect someone.” Practically speaking, these are almost the same thing, but technically there is a great difference.Contagious refers only to the […]

These three words all have meanings related to helpful advice. They all describe people who advise and help other people, but each word is different.Consul is the most specific; it refers to a specific government job—in the modern era, to the person who represents a nation’s commercial and social interests in a foreign country. This […]

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 […]