A simile is a figure of speech that compares two different things with one another by using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. It is crucial to use ‘like’ or ‘as’ because without these words, the comparison might actually be classified as a metaphor, or just be confusing to readers. Similes are considered to be one
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Onomatopoeia (on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh) refers to words that resemble or sound like the sounds they describe or, in other words, the naming of an action by a phonetic representation or imitation of the sound associated with it. Think of words such as crash, tick-tock, hiss, waa-waa, hoo-hoo, and whoosh. Writers use onomatopoeia to stimulate the reader’s auditory
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Did you know that there are words in English that have two completely opposite meanings? Find it hard to believe? In this edition of ‘Vocabulary Matters’ we introduce you to an interesting category of words and phrases called “contronyms” (also spelled as “contranyms”, or referred to as “auto antonyms”). A contronym is a word with
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In the previous edition of ‘Vocabulary Matters’ we discussed homophones - words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings as well. This edition of ‘Vocabulary Matters’ will give you more insights into homographs - words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings. Take a look at the following
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Learning English can be both funny and confusing. The language has various confusing oddities - homophones, homographs, homonyms, and inconsistent spellings are just a few - that make it difficult to learn and easy to misunderstand. In the previous edition of ‘Vocabulary Matters’ we discussed homonyms - each of two or more words having the
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