Our language is full of words that sound so alike yet mean vastly different things, like the lexical labyrinth of stent versus stint. To the untrained ear, they may seem swappable, but they couldn’t be more different. So, let’s take a moment to scrutinize these two terms so you’ll never get them mixed up again. Stent vs. Stint: Meanings and Differences For the most part, a stent is a small tube made of metal or plastic that doctors place into …
Weak is an adjective that means lacking physical strength or feeble. Weak may also mean lacking in moral strength, easily influenced or lured into temptation. A person or thing which exerts little force is considered weak. Related words are weaker, weakest and weakish. Weak comes from the Old English word wac, meaning pliant, of little worth, not steadfast. A week is a period of any seven consecutive days. A calendrical week consists of seven days named Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, …
A llama is an animal that lives in the Andes mountains in South America. The llama is a pack animal that also provides wooly fleece, meat and milk. Llamas are domesticated ruminants, a member of the camel family. Llamas are most likely descended from the guanaco, llamas were first domesticated by the Quechua Indians about 6,000 years ago. The Quechua word for this animal is llama. A lama is a title for a Tibetan or Mongolian Buddhist spiritual leader, a …
Let’s is a contraction of let us, often used as an imperative. If one can replace let’s with let us, then it is a contraction and therefore, needs an apostrophe. The use of contractions is not a modern phenomenon, contractions came into use during the period when Old English was spoken, though the use of an apostrophe to mark the place of the missing letters didn’t come into usage until much later. Lets is the past and past participle of …
Staid is an adjective that means settled, unadventurous, sedate, steady of character. Staid is usually employed to signify someone stodgy or dull. The adverb form is staidly, the noun form is staidness. Staid as an adjectival use of the past participle stayed came about in the 1540s, within a decade it came to mean sober and sedate. Stayed is the past participle of the verb stay, meaning to remain in the same place, to reside in a dwelling, often meant …
English is chocked full of homophones, words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. One of my favorite pairings is heart and hart. Sure, they sound identical, but these two words have entirely different definitions, and getting them right is essential. So, I’ll go over the difference between heart and hart and share some examples of each in sentences. Hart vs. Heart The noun heart refers to the muscular organ responsible for pumping blood through your circulatory system …
A pole is (1.) a slender, rounded, long piece of wood or metal. Often, one end of a pole is stuck in the ground and used as a support for a tent or something similar. A pole may also be (2.) a simple fishing rod (3.) the front innermost starting position at a racetrack (4.) an archaic British unit of measure. Pole may also be used as a transitive verb to mean (5.) to move a boat by applying a …
Shone is a past and past participle form of the verb shine, when shine is used as an intransitive verb meaning to emit light. Shone is a comes from the Old English word scinan, meaning shed light, be radiant, illuminate. Shown is the past participle of the word show, which is a verb meaning to make noticeable, exhibit, to present, to bestow. The word show has existed in its present form since around 1300, to mean act of exhibiting, to …
Breeches are short trousers that extend to or below the knee. When speaking informally, breeches is a term that may refer to any trousers. Breeches is a plural noun, the preferred pronunciation is BRIchiz. The word breeches appears around 1200, it comes from the Old English word brec, the plural of broc, meaning a garment for the legs and trunk. Breeches cover a person’s posterior, the word breech has come to refer to a baby trying to emerge from the …
A cent is a penny, the lowest denomination of money in the United States, Canada and other countries. One hundred cents equal one dollar. Cent comes from the Latin centum, which means one hundred. Cent- is still used as a prefix to mean one hundred. A scent is a particular smell, usually pleasant. Perfume is often referred to as a scent. Scent may also denote the trail a bloodhound or other dog follows to find a missing person. The word scent …