Sentences:  The ____ of the flowers in the vase mingled with the
____ of boiling cabbage in the kitchen.  The ____ of spring is on the
meadows.  So keen was the hound’s sense of ____ that he quickly picked up
the ____ again.  Any smoker likes the  ____ of a good cigar.  The ____ of
the handkerchief was delicate.  Though it was a disagreeable ____, I should
hardly call it a[n] ____.  The ____ of spices told him that his mother was
baking his favorite cake, and he also detected the ____ of coffee.  The
____ of the ocean was in the air.  He sniffed the ____ of frying bacon.

Song, ballad, ditty, lullaby, hymn, anthem, dirge, chant, paean, lay, carol, lilt.

Sentences:  “They learn in suffering what they teach in ____.” 
The mother crooned a[n] ____ to her babe.  The Highland girl sang a moving
old ____ worshipers sang a[n] ____ of praise.  Charles Wesley wrote many
____.  As I approached the cathedral, I could hear the ____ of lark’s
outside and the ____ of the choir within.  “Our sweetest ____ are those
that tell of saddest thought.”  “A[n] ____ for her the doubly dead in that
she died so young.”

Speak, discourse, expatiate, descant, comment, argue, persuade, plead, lecture, preach, harangue, rant, roar, spout, thunder, declaim, harp.  (With this group compare the Say group, above, and the Talk group, below.)

Sentences:  “His virtues Will ____ like angels trumpet-tongu’d
against The deep damnation of his taking-off.”  “Here, under leave of
Brutus and the rest, ...  Come I to ____ in Caesar’s funeral.”  “Ay me! what
act, That ____ so loud and ____ in the index?” “Hadst thou thy wits and
didst ____ revenge, It could not move thus.”  “Thou canst not ____ of that
thou dost not feel.”  “Nay, if thou’lt mouth, I’ ____ as well as thou.” 
While the politician ____ in the senate chamber upon theoretical ills, the
agitator outside ____ the mob about actual ones.  “For murder, though it
have no tongue, will ____ With most miraculous organ.”

Spend, expend, disburse, squander, waste, lavish.

Sentences:  Large sums were ____ in rebuilding the devastated
regions of France. ____ your money, but do not ____ it.  One should not
____ more than one earns.  The king ____ great sums upon his favorites.  The
political boss ____ the money among his henchmen.  “The younger son ...
____ his substance with riotous living.”

Spot, blotch, speckle, fleck, dapple, smear, smutch, brand, defacement, blemish, stain, discoloration, speck, mark, smudge, flaw, defect, blot.

Sentences:  A ____ in the crystal.  The ____ of Cain.  A life free
from ____.  “Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such
black and grained ____ As will not leave their tinct.”  From the standpoint
of theatrical effectiveness A ___ in the ’Scutcheon_ is one of the
best of Browning’s plays.  An eruption of the skin made a yellow ____ on
his right hand.  Dragging my sleeve across the fresh ink had made a ____
upon the page.  The ____ of foam by the roadside proved that his horse had
been going fast.  The ____ at the end of his fingers told me he was a
cigarette-smoker.  On the left foreleg of the horse was a slight ____.

Stay, tarry, linger, stop, sojourn, remain, abide, live, reside, dwell, lodge.