Writing is a tough game sometimes. Writers are constantly searching for the perfect word to convey an idea, to share the right emotion, or explain a difficult concept, among other situations. The right word in a headline might make or break a story, getting those all-important readers to spend time with your words.
Rather than stay stuck, most writers will pull out a thesaurus, online or hard copy. These two tools, OneLook and Related Words offer just the right balance of speed and thoroughness to help you find the perfect word to make your writing hold a reader’s attention.
OneLook Thesaurus screenshot
TJ McCue
OneLook is fantastic in that it allows you to do a simple search or to easily use advanced filters to help you when you are truly stuck. For example, you can try the “Starts with” filter or the “Sounds like” option. How many times have you said out loud that you need a word that “sounds like” another word?
After you search, OneLook also gives you the definition, which is quite helpful and may give you more ideas for finding just the right word. But then it gives you this big table of words that are related (as you can see in the screenshot above). The default result gives you all the similar words, but then it also lets you select by nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. The last thing that I truly love about OneLook is they offer a Google Docs integration that you can install as an add-on within the Google Docs settings to get all of that without leaving your work in progress.
Forbes RelatedWords Thesaurus
TJ McCue
Related Words operates a little differently than tools like a standard thesaurus or OneLook. According to their site, “it looks for words which have some meaningful relationship with your query. [Resulting in] ‘related words’ — rather than just direct synonyms.” As you can see in my screenshot, it displays many options in the results table. But what you cannot see is that it goes on for hundreds of words below the roughly 35 words you see in my image. It is almost a bit too much, but if you love narrowing down to just the right word, you can keep clicking and zeroing in.
Of course, if you simply do not want to remember or bookmark either of these wonderful websites, then I have one more suggestion. Use some of Google’s advanced search features. You can simply type “define:” into the Google search box with your word of choice, like this: “define:InsertYourWord.” I bolded the command to make it easier to see, but you only need to type the word define with a colon, then your search term (without a space and without quotes) and Google will give you some basic definitions which can lead you to other words that might work. Not near as elegant as these two sites, but can work in a pinch.
Hat tip to Ann Handley’s newsletter that often shares useful writing tools. This thesaurus tip came from TA #45: Make Writing Fun Again, Get More Newsletter Subscribers, How Old Are You Based on Your Emails?
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Sometimes it’s hard to explain exactly how you feel. This handy vocabulary wheel helps you narrow down exactly what word best expresses your current emotional state.
Whether you’re writing or talking about a character, another person, or yourself, it can be easy to use the same words over and over. This wheel diagram from English teacher Kaitlin Robbs helps you find the right word for the right feeling from the inside out. Start out with a basic emotion and then move outward until you have the best synonym for the job. The wheel itself isn’t exactly groundbreaking in the world of vocabulary, but it’s a nice reference for those that have a hard time being specific about how they or others feel.
Vocabulary expanders for English | Dramatic Languages
When you’re learning a new language, sometimes it can be hard to find just the right word. That is why we are introducing the brand new English Bilingual Dictionary feature on Translator for Bing. The feature is available for English language learners and English speakers learning a foreign language. The new feature displays alternative translations from or to English, examples of words in context to help you choose the perfect translation and even example of translated sentences using this word.
Whether you are trying to quickly find the best translation for a specific word, an alternative way to translate a particular word in your sentence, find out what that one word means in a sentence you are trying to translate, or just discover new words you might not have learned yet, the new English Bilingual Dictionary feature can give you exactly what you need to make the learning process easier.
The English Bilingual Dictionary is powered by Microsoft Translator, which is an automatic translation service that uses statistical analysis to determine the best translation from one language to another. Because of the way automatic translation works, translations are best when you provide some context to tell the computer how to translate a word — that is why it works better for translating sentences than single words.
Take, for instance, the English word “great”. There are many words in English that might mean the same thing in the context of your sentence — excellent, glorious, large, etc. Now imagine you are translating the word to Spanish. Not only do you have the subtle differences in the English meanings to consider, but the subtle differences in the Spanish translations as well.
If you already are familiar with English and one of the 50+ languages supported by Microsoft Translator, the new dictionary feature can help you find the perfect word in an instant. The new English Bilingual Dictionary feature is great for language learners or language professionals who use Translator as a reference to increase the speed of their translation work.
Now when you translate a word with Translator for Bing, the new feature will give you a list of alternative translations to the word in the target language. You will also be able to see examples of the alternatives used in context to help you choose just the right translation. In addition, the new feature displays a confidence meter next to each alternative translation to show how relevant the alternative might be. Finally, by just clicking or touching one of the proposed words (in the example below, “amazing” was selected), you will also get an example of a sentence using this word and its translation coming from our translation engine.
Because this feature depends on a significant amount of language data, the feature is currently only available to or from English.
The Translator Bilingual Dictionary is just one of Microsoft Translator’s tools to give you translation whenever and wherever you need it. You can find other Translator apps and supported products at www.microsofttranslator.com/apps.
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July 21 2010, 15:53
is there any word for this in english or any other language?
i was writing a fanfiction when i realized i need 3 lines to explain this:
what’s the word for putting something against something else and not applying any pressure at all? just connecting it. um. i connect my fingers to the apple doesn’t sound right though.
i tried thesaurus dot com but can’t find any word i like.
i think the closest word i want in indonesian will be «menempelkan» (it’s not really poetic though), but in my dictionary there’s only «to adhere» as translation, which will be far from the meaning i want…
thank you for your help.
ps: so it’s «touch» and «place». what else?
Presentation on theme: «Finding the Perfect Word»— Presentation transcript:
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Finding the Perfect Word
Connotation / Denotation
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The Perfect Word… Never underestimate the value of the right word. Some authors spend hours, days, or even weeks searching for just the right word to express their thoughts, feelings, and so on.
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The denotation is the dictionary definition.
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denotation = definition
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Connotation The different associations we have with words is called their connotation. Connotation is the emotional meaning of a word.
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Consider the word dog What other words can we use that have the same denotation as “dog” but different connotations?
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Connotation positive negative or neutral connotation
Generally, we can say that words have a positive negative or neutral connotation sunny sweltering warm cool frigid cold thrifty stingy frugal refined condescending polite persistent bullheaded firm
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IMPORTANT! If you are asked to identify a word’s connotation, go with the connotation that MOST PEOPLE would associate with the word.
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IMPORTANT! While words can have positive, negative, or neutral connotations, generally speaking, words DO NOT have positive, negative, or neutral denotations. The denotation is simply what the word means (it’s definition)—without any feelings or associations.