Glossary: what the labels on this site mean

Each term below carries a plain definition and a sentence showing the term itself in use, in the same shape as the word pages.

• term

  entry

  One published word record: a chosen part of speech, a definition written here, an example written here, and its labels.

  in use bold, boldly and boldness are three entries, because each is used differently in a sentence.

• term

  root word

  A base vocabulary item counted once, after a plain plural, an -ly adverb, a -ness or -ity noun, or a participle is folded into a base word already on the site.

  in use 4,633 entries sit on 4,007 root words, and 626 of the entries are transparent forms of another.

• term

  positive sense

  An established English meaning that says something constructive on its own, without needing a flattering sentence around it.

  in use make was left out because producing something is neutral until the sentence says otherwise.

• term

  part of speech

  The role this entry and its example show: adjective, noun, verb, or adverb. A word can have other roles outside the sense shown here.

  in use uplift appears as a verb here, which is the sense the example demonstrates.

• term

  common

  Familiar in ordinary contemporary English, and unlikely to make a general reader stop.

  in use 849 entries are marked less common, and the rest are not marked at all.

• term

  less common

  Real English that is rarer, more specialised, or more noticeable, so the definition and example are worth reading before you use it.

  in use A less common word is never hidden here; it is labelled, which is the honest version.

• term

  describes a person

  Suitable for feedback, character description, appreciation, or another direct description of someone in the sense shown.

  in use 1,392 entries are marked as describing a person.

• term

  tone

  How a word feels: calm, capable, energetic, hopeful, joyful, kind, resilient, or thoughtful. Eight labels, and most entries carry two.

  in use brave carries calm and resilient, which is a different thing from how formal it is.

• term

  register

  How a word lands: playful, everyday, warm, professional, formal, or literary. It is about the room you are in, not about the feeling.

  in use resolute and stubborn can share a tone and still belong in different rooms.

Tone is how a word feels. Register is how it lands. They are separate axes and a word can be high on one and low on the other, which is why this site never merges them into a single score.

tenacious and dogged both carry the resilient tone. tenacious reads professional and dogged reads everyday, so the same praise arrives differently in a performance review and in a message to a friend. Neither is better. The right one depends on the sentence you are writing.

Neither tone nor register is drawn as a colour or a meter anywhere on this site. Tone is a label beside the word. Register is a label in a fixed column, so a stack of alternatives can be compared by position instead of by reading every line.

Wherever this site offers a choice between words, the alternatives inside one meaning are listed in a fixed register order. It is a presentation convention so the same shape appears on every page. It is not a scale, it is not a ranking, and nothing here says one register is better than another.

Where a register was not recorded for an alternative, the column shows a single dot and the alternative sorts last in its group. It is never guessed and the alternative is never dropped.

• playful
• everyday
• warm
• professional
• formal
• literary