choke, suffocate stifle, suffocate clothes, raiment witness, spectator beat, pulsate mournful, melancholy beginning, incipient drink, imbibe light, illuminate hall, corridor stair, escalator anger, indignation fight, combat sleight-of-hand, prestidigitation build, construct tree, arbor ask, interrogate wench, virgin frisk, caper fill, replenish water, irrigate silly, foolish coming, advent feeling, sentiment old, antiquated forerunner, precursor sew, embroider unload, exonerate grave, sepulcher readable, legible tell, narrate kiss, osculate nose, proboscis striking, percussion green, verdant stroke, concussion grass, verdure bowman, archer drive, propel greed, avarice book, volume stingy, parsimonious warrior, belligerent bath, ablution owner, proprietor wrong, incorrect bow, obeisance top, summit kneel, genuflection food, nutrition work, occupation seize, apprehend shut, close field, agrarian

Turn back to Lists A, B, C, D, E, and F. Discriminate between the members of each pair contained in these lists.  Frame sentences to illustrate the correct use of the words.

VII

    SYNONYMS IN LARGER GROUPS (1)

In considering pairs we have, without using the word, been studying synonyms.  For most pairs are synonyms (or in some instances antonyms) that hunt in couples.  We must now deal with synonyms, and incidentally antonyms, as they associate themselves in larger groups.

A vocabulary is impoverished.  Why?  Nine times in ten, because of a disregard of synonyms.  Listen to the talk of the average person.  Whatever is pleasing is fine or nice or all to the good; whatever is displeasing is bum or awful or a fright.  Life is reflected, not as noble and complex, but as mean and meager.  Out of such stereotyped utterance only the general idea emerges.  The precise meaning is lazily or incompetently left to the hearer to imagine.  The precise meaning?  There is none.  A person who does not take the trouble to speak clearly has not taken the trouble to think clearly.

But the master of synonyms expresses, instead of general, hazy, commonplace conceptions, the subtlest shadings of thought and feeling.  He has so trained himself that he selects, it may be unconsciously, from a throng of possible words.  One word may be strong, another weak.  One may be broad, another narrow.  One may present an alternative in meanings, another permit no liberty of choice.  One may be suggestive, another literal or colorless.  One may penetrate to the core of the idea, another strike only in the environs.  With these possibilities the master of synonyms reckons.  He must have the right word.  He chooses it, not at haphazard, but in conformity with a definite purpose.