Afflict and Inflict are verbs that have similar and overlapping meanings, but they maintain a distinct usage. Both can mean “to cause suffering” (to someone): The guest inflicted his need to watch television on his hosts.They were afflicted with a guest who watched television every night. Generally inflict is paired with the preposition on (inflict on), while […]

Affinity and Infinity sound alike but have different meanings.  Affinity means “connection,” “attraction,” or “kinship.”  Infinity means “without end.” Although affinity has several meanings, they all revolve around the idea of “kinship,” which is closest to the word’s original meaning. The most common usage expresses “liking”: She felt an affinity for other immigrants because they shared […]

Afterward and Afterwards are both adverbs that mean “later,” and differ only in spelling; they are equally acceptable, although one is more popular than the other in various countries. They can only be used as sentence-level adverbs, not directly on verbs. Here’s an example to illustrate: Correct: Afterward(s), we ate ice-cream.Incorrect: We afterward(s) ate ice cream. Although […]

Agression and Egression have entirely different meanings. Aggression can refer to any hostile behavior, such as an insult or attack: Your aggression is intolerable; stop attacking me! Egression means the “process or method of leaving or emerging from somewhere.” And while aggression is a very common word, egression is a very rare word, probably because it […]

Drier and Dryer are the same word when used as a noun, just spelled differently. The primary meaning of this word is someone or something that makes things dry, especially a clothes dryer or a hair dryer. My clothes are dry in the dryer.Mom took out my laundry from the dryer and hung it up to […]