Vocabulary Made Easy series: Build your career with your word power

Professionals need to enhance their vocabulary to be able to improve their communicative skills and head up the career ladder.

Building your career requires effective communication skills. Professionals must enhance their vocabulary to improve their communicative skills and advance the career ladder.

In this age of extreme competition in the professional sphere, working individuals must improve their word power to stay in the race. (Pixabay)

In this age of extreme competition in the professional sphere, working individuals must improve their word power to stay in the race.

Here's a way to improve your vocabulary. Check out the words for the day and a small quiz to push yourself to improve your word power.

Onus (Noun)

Meaning: something that is one's duty or responsibility

Example: Some argue that minimum wages constrain job creation by the onus they put on employers

Opiate (Noun)

Meaning: A drug derived from or related to opium

Example: They opiate the people with the promises of social change that they fail to keep

Opprobrious (Adjective)

Meaning: expressing scorn or criticism

Example: In this more recent instance, Atkinson found an opprobrious term rolling nicely off the tongue

Opprobrium (Noun)

Meaning: harsh criticism or censure

Example: I have been heaped with some opprobrium by opponents of the project

Put your thinking cap on and try to answer the following questions to understand how much you have grasped.

1. Sponsors are withdrawing advertisements featuring the couple and websites have been flooded with ___________________ messages. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? ( opprobrious, opiate)
2. Can you think of some antonyms for the word Opprobrium?
3. Can you think of some synonyms for the word Onus?

Watch out for this space for your weekly update on improving word power.

(Definitions and examples are from Oxford Languages)