Vocabulary Made Easy series: Work on your language skills to be more confident

With a strong vocabulary, you can impress your peers at work or with your answers in the exams.

Language skills are an important factor in helping students feel more confident about appearing for exams and helping professionals feel more confident about their work. With a strong vocabulary, you can impress your peers at work or with your answers in the exams.

Check out the words and a quiz to push yourself to improve your word power and language skills. (Shutterstock)

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.

Exigent (Adjective)

Meaning: pressing; demanding

Example: The exigent demands of her contemporaries' music took a toll on her voice

Fatuous (Adjective)

Meaning: silly and pointless

Example: The comparisons are being made, fatuous as they are

Eschew (Verb)

Meaning: deliberately avoid using; abstain from

Example: He appealed to the crowd to eschew violence

Gouge (Verb)

Meaning: make (a groove, hole, or indentation) with or as with a sharp tool or blade

Example: Some days later he discovered a deep gouge in the paintwork of his car

Grandiose (Adjective)

Meaning: impressive and imposing in appearance or style, especially pretentiously so

Example: Don't be discouraged when your grandiose plans fail on the first attempt

Guile (Noun)

Meaning: sly or cunning intelligence

Example: He has also added a smattering of guile to his undoubted power

Homage (Noun)

Meaning: special honour or respect shown publicly

Example: They stood for a minute in homage to the fallen troops

Incipient (Adjective)

Meaning: beginning to happen or develop

Example: We seemed more like friends than incipient lovers

Inure (Verb)

Meaning: accustom (someone) to something, especially something unpleasant

Example: These children have been inured to violence

Lax (Adjective)

Meaning: not sufficiently strict, severe, or careful

Example: Many parents are too lax with their children

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

1. Discipline is very _______________ in this school. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? (Lax, Incipient)
2. He could feel incipient anger building up. Which of the following words fits best in the sentence? ( Inure, Incipient)
3. Can you think of some antonyms for the word Homage?
4. Can you think of some synonyms for the word Guile?

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

(Definitions and examples are from Oxford Languages)