The Magic of Words

Exercise 1
1. A dog barks. State the sounds made by the following animals:
a cat, a horse, a donkey, an elephant, a frog, a lion, a child, a hyena, a cock, a hen, a
mouse, an owl, a monkey, a sea-lion, a sheep.
2. How would you describe the people when naming them by their occupations who:
clean windows, sell nails, drive a motor car for a living, write letters, design buildings,
make suits.
3. Give the opposites:
merry, continuous, innocent, hygienic, liberty, private, alien, courteous, clumsy,
detrimental.
You will have noticed that how many people, in their conversation, use one particular word for
many purposes, quite wrongly, in order to save themselves the trouble of thinking the
appropriate one. Consider the examples mentioned:
A nice play.
A nice hat.
A nice view.

A pleasing play.
An interesting play.
A becoming hat.
A stylish hat
An attractive hat.
A fine view.
A splendid view.
An inspiring view.

Exercise 2
1. Find the suitable adjective instead of nice for the following:
a nice dress, a nice concert, a nice day, a nice orange, a nice book, a nice voice, a nice
carpet, a nice chair, a nice flower
2. Write short phrase to include the following words used as adjectives:
remarkable, grave, serious, urgent, essential, significant, momentous, weighty,
preponderate

Exercise 3
1. Construct sentences to illustrate the use of the words:
a. Annual and annular
b. Consols and consuls
c. Alien and alienist
d. Economic and economical
e. Physical and psychical
2. Make sentences to show clearly the difference between:
a. Monotony and monotone
b. Compute and impute
c. Deportation and deportment
d. Principal and principle
e. Elusive and illusive
f. Comprehensive and comprehensible
3. Make sentences to show difference between:
a. Recourse and resource
b. Effect and affect
c. Voracious and veracious
d. Septic and sceptic
e. Vestige and vestment

Exercise 4
1. Give synonyms for: quick, rebuke, quiet, impulse, extraordinary, gigantic, strong, occur,
refreshing, ratifying, fearfulness, vain, provoke, sarcastic, suggest, manufacture,

penniless, peevish, mendicant, arrange, oddity, obsolete, to notices, nimble,

insignificant, inept, incite, harsh, redundant, remainder.
2. Give homonyms for the following words and state meaning of each: heart, four, hair,
great, bear, gait, foul, flee, pale, sail, plain, pray, owed, knave, slight, compliment, air,
beer, raise, muscle.
3. Give antonyms for the following words: windy, speedy, hungry, poor, bright, attractive,
clean, innocent, negligible, approached, recent, dejected, extravagant, tenderly,
obscure, faulty, trivial, public, fears.