Questions tagged [connotation]

For questions regarding the associated or underlying meaning of a word, in addition to its primary definition.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
2 votes
2 answers
295 views

Can you define the subtle difference between "What kind of person ..." and "What kind of a person"? [duplicate]

The indefinite article certainly adds something, creating a slightly different shade of meaning, but is there a clearly defined rule or principle for this? What kind of freak show is this? What kind ...
Ricky's user avatar
  • 20.4k
2 votes
2 answers
2k views

How different is ‘to unwind’ from ‘to relax’? [closed]

The other day I came across the phrase ‘I need to unwind.’ and I found it means ‘I need to relax’, which I’m familiar with. Can both be used exactly in the same way or are there any differences in ...
Akihiro's user avatar
  • 217
2 votes
1 answer
462 views

What kind of connotation does "make the most of it" have?

I am recieving a small scholarship for university, and I have been asked to write a couple sentences (presumably for the founders of the scholarship to see) describing what this scholarship means to ...
Ovi's user avatar
  • 295
2 votes
3 answers
9k views

What is the word for "victim" but with a positive connotation?

What is the word for "victim" but with a positive connotation? For example: Bill Gates was not successful just because he was smart and hardworking, he was also a "victim" of good luck. Obviously, ...
michaeljan's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
5k views

Positive term for "curious"

I'm looking for a synonym for "curious" that is undoubtedly positive. "Curious" itself is fairly neutral--it could be interpreted as a good thing, but it's sometimes seen as a bad thing (i.e., "...
Nicole's user avatar
  • 11.8k
2 votes
4 answers
28k views

Is "interesting" a negative or positive phrase?

When someone tells you something like: It's interesting to have such a feature. It's interesting to look. Is it a negative or positive phrase? It sounds like a positive phrase but I think it may be ...
TheOneTeam's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is an areligious person secular?

An areligious person is one who is: unconcerned with or indifferent to religious matters. A secular person is one who is: in the state of being separate from religion, or not being exclusively ...
asheeshr's user avatar
  • 200
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Connotation of the word "sprezzatura "

According to Wikipedia, sprezzatura means a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it. ...
user44557's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

"Crisis", "drama" and similar words in the news

Today I read the economist headline: On to the next crisis. Automatic spending cuts took effect on March 1st; more drama is to come I startled at the word ‘drama’. It would be regarded as ...
shuhalo's user avatar
  • 1,065
2 votes
1 answer
6k views

Does "peculiar" imply "unusual"/"hard to expect"?

When something is called peculiar or having a peculiarity what does that mean? Does it just mean it has some specific features or does it mean that those specific features are unusual, not normally ...
sharptooth's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
153 views

What does "he was a child who couldn't keep his fingers out of the cookie jar" mean when talking of someone's sexual scandal?

This sentence is quoted from a director's memoir, where he mentions that a famous movie star was sent to the police station because of his affair. (Thank all of you for your considerate answers. To ...
RomanGhost's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
94 views

Why is a Mormon settlement called a "colony" while other settlements are not?

I was reading several articles about the Oregon Trail and other movements west, mostly after the American Civil War. Several sources refer to Mormon settlements as "colonies", though these ...
Village's user avatar
  • 2,051
2 votes
3 answers
3k views

Difference between the prefixes "pre" and "ante"?

Thinking of the words "precedent" and "antecedent" led me to this question. They seem to mean almost exactly the same thing in their more general usages, but "antecedent" ...
Anon's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
4 answers
430 views

What is an alternative to "Perpetrator" with a more neutral connotation?

In the phrase "He criticized the revolution and its ______" I originally wrote "perpetrators," but that casts a negative connotation on the revolution, as if it is a crime. I don't ...
EphraimRuttenberg's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
820 views

What is the connotation behind the preposition "gone"?

I found few examples of the word gone as preposition; I know that this form is chiefly used in British English, and that it means "later than the time mentioned". But I couldn't grasp the connotation ...
Ahmed's user avatar
  • 4,657
2 votes
3 answers
84 views

The word 'overall' implies not quite?

I sometimes get feedback saying 'overall it's good', and I always feel that's saying there's still something lacking and it isn't really that great. Am I reading too much into it?
adriooo's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
4 answers
370 views

Is "boilerplate" a pejorative when discussing legal documents?

I have taken to referring to some legal documents (not just clauses) as boilerplate documents because they are re-used verbatim. For example, the GNU General Public License, the Creative Commons ...
lofidevops's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
717 views

Is this a correct usage of “gravitas”? [closed]

The word gravitas is usually used in reference to a human quality. Can it also be used correctly in the following example? The use of the time-worn stones for the steps gives an instant air of ...
C wakeford's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
102 views

Can the phrase "once more" be a noun in American English? [closed]

Can the phrase "once more" be a noun in American English? I'm wondering if it can, as the two Japanese online dictionaries I'm using for my translation of 今一度 both say that the entry, -which only ...
Toyu_Frey's user avatar
  • 269
2 votes
0 answers
203 views

Does "asinine" connote *willful* ignorance? [closed]

As a native English speaker, I've always been under the impression that "asinine" has a connotation of willful ignorance, or arrogance, on the part of the person so described. For instance, some of ...
Deep Thought's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
597 views

Does “beats me” have a bad connotation?

While living in the USA, I have heard many people use the sentence “beats me” to mean “I don’t know”. Checking online, that’s seems a regular meaning: slang A response when one does not know the ...
Alvaro Montoro's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
101 views

How to head off a legal reading of a term or phrase? [closed]

Terms like 'make whole', 'encumbered', etc have both non-financial/non-legal usages and financial/legal usages and, in some cases, explicit financial/legal definitions. To avoid technical ...
Mike's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
0 answers
623 views

Erstwhile - connotations

This question asks about the positive or negative connotations of the word erstwhile. Erstwhile means former by dictionary definition and as discussed and mentioned on this English Language & ...
Lawrence's user avatar
  • 38.6k
2 votes
0 answers
146 views

Another word for "tens" other than "dozens" [duplicate]

I'm seeking another word for "tens" when describing multiples of something fewer than one-hundred. For example: The landlord received tens of applications for the rental home. I don't like the ...
gfullam's user avatar
  • 343
2 votes
0 answers
211 views

Connotation of a sentence in a listening material from TPO

(Here for the original audio source (MP3 file). The part in question begins approximately at 2'18'') This conversation is an excerpt from one listening material in a TPO (TOEFL Practice Online) test, ...
Vim's user avatar
  • 1,030
2 votes
3 answers
11k views

Difference in usage between "Dependent" and "Reliant"

Based on the comments on a question on another SE site, I'm trying to define the difference between something being "Dependent upon something" and being "reliant upon something". The sentence in ...
Bobson's user avatar
  • 792
2 votes
2 answers
11k views

"They want nobody's sympathy" vs "They don't want anyone's sympathy"

Which is better? They want nobody's sympathy. Or They don't want anyone's sympathy. I know both are grammatically correct, but I think they should be used for different occasions. One means ...
Perceptioner's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
795 views

Meaning of "dismay"

What is the exact meaning of dismay? Is it close to shock and surprise? Or is it closer to disappointment and unhappiness? Or does it mean embarrassment? When I looked the word up in the ...
Rabbit's user avatar
  • 29
2 votes
3 answers
164 views

What's a word to call a person who is involuntarily used?

In an interaction, one person uses another against their will. Is there a word (noun) to refer to that person? Example: Person A trips and grabs onto Person B, a stranger, in order to not fall to the ...
wolvela's user avatar
  • 21
1 vote
4 answers
12k views

Do people perceive a difference between "phantasy" and "fantasy"? [closed]

When I started to learn English, I was used to write phantasy instead of fantasy, and I was always corrected. I recently noticed that phantasy is an English word too. Do people give to those words a ...
apaderno's user avatar
  • 59.2k
1 vote
2 answers
2k views

What is the difference in connotation between "relentless" and "ruthless?"

My understanding is that both words refer to a hard-charging "take no prisoners" approach to an issue.Relentless is defined as, "showing or promising no abatement of severity, activity, strength or ...
Tom Au's user avatar
  • 11.1k
1 vote
8 answers
1k views

Which word meaning "someone who kills bad substances" can be used in an ad campaign? [closed]

We have an idea to post short ads like "our company is hiring" in company blog posts. The company develops software and one of duties of people we want to hire will be finding, locating and fixing ...
sharptooth's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
573 views

Housekeeping App — does it make sense?

We are providing an app which manages your finances — like a housekeeping book. Our space is limited; therefore, we want to use the slogan "Housekeeping App". Would an English speaker know what is ...
Phil Peter's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
7k views

Connotation of "proud"

Does the word proud have a bad connotation? I want to use 'proud+something' as a company and website name but I'm not sure what connotation it can have.
donald's user avatar
  • 235
1 vote
1 answer
4k views

Is "elder brother" implicit in "brother"?

I just watched a film called Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. I wonder how one knows whether he is an elder brother or a younger brother when he only says that he has a brother and does not ...
liuyanghejerry's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
655 views

Does "delete" have negative connotations?

I've noticed, when major connected device OSes remove a Bluetooth device from the list of known devices, they typically use "forget", "remove", or "unpair" instead of &...
Jason R. Mick's user avatar
1 vote
4 answers
2k views

What's the difference between 'fallacy' and 'misnomer'? [closed]

In which contexts the usage vary?
mixdev's user avatar
  • 201
1 vote
2 answers
248 views

How could Ronald Reagan be compared with God in Sarah Palin's list of American authentic, and why?

Further to my question about the usage of ‘Blood libels’ I posted yesterday, I found the following lead-copy of an article referring to Sara Palin’s rhetoric in today’s Washington Post. It seems the ...
Yoichi Oishi's user avatar
  • 70.2k
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Is “girl” a valid synonym for “young woman”?

This question emerged out of a discussion on Mastodon about Ivanka Trump being called a girl, where it was claimed that “girl' is synonymous with 'young woman' in English”. Is this true? Is it sexism ...
rugk's user avatar
  • 137
1 vote
4 answers
1k views

Word similar to "excuse" but without negative connotation

I was looking up absentee voting laws in different states after hearing something on the news and saw this: https://ballotpedia.org/Absentee_voting It divides the US states into three groups based on ...
Greg Nisbet's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
654 views

Does the prefix "pre" connote negative meanings? Examples: "Presage" vs "sage", "pretext" and "preclude"

I came across the word "presage" through the Vocabulary Builder as below presage (v.) presij to indicate something (usually bad) is about to happen. The sudden loss of jobs presaged an ...
user avatar
1 vote
6 answers
311 views

positive version of tattle

Is there a word that represents the positive connotation equivalent of the term tattle or tattletale ? What I would be looking for is something like the following: Dan tattled on Ken to Ken's boss. ...
MegaMark's user avatar
  • 771
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Does the word zealous have an implicit religious connotation? [duplicate]

Earlier today I was describing someone to a friend. I said, "I never realized how zealous he was." I meant for the meaning of zealous here to be religiously zealous. Without an adverb, I would ...
spacetyper's user avatar
  • 2,719
1 vote
5 answers
3k views

What does the phrase “flip flop” bring to mind?

I need help with the connotation of the phrase flip flop. Let me explain – I am working on a small project that is meant to promote travelling and education through travelling and getting to know ...
Carrie's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
3 answers
2k views

Does "dissimulation" have a positive, negative, or neutral connotation?

I tried checking a few online dictionaries and can't get a feel for whether the word is generally used in a positive or negative sense. What is the connotation of "dissimulation"?
dmr's user avatar
  • 2,710
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Does "end up" have a negative connotation? [closed]

Maybe not, as some of the example usages in here, but it still has a negative feel to me. Is there some positive way that can be used instead?
Vic's user avatar
  • 121
1 vote
2 answers
5k views

Use of the word "multiple" [closed]

Multiple definition - ">"having or involving several parts, elements, or members Several definition - ">"more than two but not many _via ...
Mandeguz's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
18k views

Use of "brother" in non-family and non-religious contexts

I think the word brother (sometimes spelled brotha or bro) has been used for a long time among African Americans when talking to one another with the meaning of "pal" and not in a family context. ...
None's user avatar
  • 4,216
1 vote
3 answers
2k views

Do "willingness" and "effort" imply different things?

In a post on Meta Stack Overflow, I used the word "willingness" in the following context: [X] is showing a willingness to learn. I justified this because [X] had posted a question asking to have a ...
waiwai933's user avatar
  • 14.6k
1 vote
3 answers
3k views

Difference in meaning and prononciation of urbane and urban

I encounter these two words pretty often, both orally and in writing. What is the difference between two, and how to pronounce, say in USA?
Anderson Silva's user avatar

1
5 6
7
8 9
12