Words sometimes confused: peak, peek and pique by Angela Caldin
Peak Peak can be a verb or a noun. The verb refers to reaching a maximum, or coming to a highest point, literally or figuratively: The noun refers to the highest point of something, like the peak of a mountain: Peek Peek can also be a verb or a noun and is related to sight; it often refers to looking, especially furtively or quickly or through a small space: It’s the word in peekaboo, a traditional game for amusing babies. Peek is also the word in the phrase sneak peek. It might… Read More
Words sometimes confused – climatic and climactic by Angela Caldin
One letter makes a big difference Climatic is an adjective which means relating to climate and climate refers to the average atmospheric conditions that prevail in a given region making it generally cold and wet or hot and dry, for example. There is still some scepticism about the claim that our carbon footprints are on course to lead to climatic extremes. The climatic conditions led to the heaviest rainfall for many years which caused extensive flooding. Drought and famine in some African countries can be attributed in part to climatic changes. Climactic… Read More
Words sometimes confused: incredible and incredulous by Angela Caldin
Incredible means that something is difficult to believe whereas incredulous means that someone is unwilling or unable to believe. So something that seems unbelievable or implausible is incredible, but if you have trouble believing something, you are incredulous. The word incredible is often overused to describe something astounding. It applies to an unbelievable situation, while incredulous applies to an unbelieving person rather than a situation. They paused for a few minutes to admire the incredible sunset, fiery red and brilliant orange against the darkening sky. Maradona was an amazing footballer with fantastic… Read More
Words sometimes confused: faint and feint by Angela Caldin
Faint and feint are homophones, but they have different meanings. Faint can be a noun, a verb, and an adjective. As a noun and verb it refers to a brief loss of consciousness. As an adjective, it means lacking in strength, conviction, clarity, or brightness. She turned her ankle so badly on the uneven path that she fell down in a faint. Noun. The shock was so great when the guilty verdict was announced that he fainted. Verb. They were hanging on to the faint hope that there were still people alive… Read More
Angela’s ABCs flout and flaunt words sometimes confused
It seemed to me that flout and flaunt were sufficiently different for it to be difficult to confuse them. I thought their meanings were clear. If you don’t comply with a rule, you are flouting it. If you make a big display of your success, you are flaunting it It seems that I was wrong. I was tut-tutting to myself the other day because I noticed that one of The Guardian’s coronavirus update writers had used flaunt to mean flout. Nobody seemed particularly bothered. When I did some research, I realised this… Read More
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