Vocabulary Made Easy series: Hone your language skills and impress your peers

Vocabulary and effective communication skills can do wonders for professionals at their workplace.

Vocabulary and effective communication skills can do wonders for professionals at their workplace. Hence, it is imperative that individuals work on their language skills to impress their peers.

Check out the words for the day to push yourself to improve your word power and language skills. (Image by Cross Referral Inc)

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

Finesse (Noun)

Meaning: impressive delicacy and skill

Example: Russian nationalism had grown in the 1930s, but had been handled with some finesse

Fitful (Adjective)

Meaning: active or occurring spasmodically or intermittently; not regular or steady

Example: He fell into a fitful, worried sleep, and woke up about three hours later

Flail

Meaning:

Noun - a threshing tool consisting of a wooden staff with a short heavy stick swinging from it

Verb- wave or swing wildly

Example: On small farms this was done with a flail or wooden mallet and block

Flay (Verb)

Meaning: strip the skin off (a corpse or carcass)

Example: They said they would kill me, flay me and a lot of other things

Flinch (Verb)

Meaning: make a quick, nervous movement as an instinctive reaction to fear, pain, or surprise

Example: Not for a moment does the book flinch at the silliness of its high jinks

Flit (Verb)

Meaning: move swiftly and lightly

Example: Small birds flitted about in the branches

Florid (Adjective)

Meaning: having a red or flushed complexion

Example: We weren't keen on his florid designs

Flotsam (Noun)

Meaning: the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on or washed up by the sea

Example: The hideous roses were flotsam and she was cast away on a tide of detritus

Fluke (Noun)

Meaning: an unlikely chance occurrence, especially a surprising piece of luck

Example: There's a huge amount of fluke and chance and accident

Fluster (Verb)

Meaning: make (someone) agitated or confused

Example: There's nothing you can do or say to fluster Bernie

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

1. I often ___________ when someone approaches me from behind. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? (Flinch, Flit)
2. They should flog him and ________________ him if they so desire. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? ( Flay, Flail)
3. Can you think of some antonyms for the word Flit?
4. Can you think of some synonyms for the word Fitful?
5. Can you think of some sentences using the words Finesse, Fluster and Fluke?

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

(Definitions and examples are from Oxford Languages)