What word did you just look up?

TomKnighton said:

I wasn't looking up a definition, but I hit up the thesaurus to find a better verb for "slowly turns". I'm really, really trying to avoid adverbs in my writing since I'm notorious for using too many of them, and needed a better verb.

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Tom, I feel your pain. Slowly seems to be an ly adverb that is impossible to replace. I encountered the problem when I tried to replace "walked slowly." I have yet to find a substitute.

The last word I looked up was photoshopped. I needed to know if it should be capitalized. Still don't know. The definition said, "often capitalized."

careen vs career. They mean the same thing people! lol

rodomontade.

While researching the way deer move, I came across the most wonderful new words today, "stot" and "pronk." ("Stot" was the word I was looking for, that bouncy gait they use when they're running away. "Pronk" is just hilarious to say).

Stot
"A springing gait of certain bovids, as gazelles and antelopes, used especially when running in alarm from a predator."

Pronk
"(of a springbok or other antelope) leap in the air with an arched back and stiff legs, typically as a form of display or when threatened."

Stot and pronk sound like words you might find in Mad Magazine.

(Interesting that the spell checker here doesn't like them.)

guttersquid said:

I encountered the problem when I tried to replace "walked slowly." I have yet to find a substitute.

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You've probably found a substitute by now, but here's a bunch: trudge, plod, lumber, potter, stroll, saunter, amble, wander.

lackadaisical

I had to check to see if I spelled it correctly.

"millennial" the double n was a surprise

against

For some reason, every three months or so, that simple little word starts looking alien to me, and I have to look it up to regain my confidence in it.

I don't have a problem with "again." But "against" gets to me. Over and over again.

Helix said:

You've probably found a substitute by now, but here's a bunch: trudge, plod, lumber, potter, stroll, saunter, amble, wander.

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Sorry, no. None of those words are direct replacements for "walk slowly," which simply means to walk at a slow pace. Those words all have subtle (and not so subtle) differences.

I have looked up a lot of words recently, all medical terms I can even pronounce well, little a lone spell right...

Makeup. I always forget if the adjective version has a space like the verb, or no space like the noun.

Disinterment: To exhume a body.

robjvargas said:

against

For some reason, every three months or so, that simple little word starts looking alien to me, and I have to look it up to regain my confidence in it.

I don't have a problem with "again." But "against" gets to me. Over and over again.

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LOL. I do that sometimes. Responsibility always gets to me. Too many i's.

emulate to check I got the right sense of the word and spelling, courteous for spelling!

Boilermaker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilermaker_%28beer_cocktail%29

"Emissary". For some reason I always think it's "emissiary"...

Apocryphal.

I knew what the word meant already, but I needed an exact definition because one of my characters is quizzing another on SAT words.

7luckyclovers said:

LOL. I do that sometimes. Responsibility always gets to me. Too many i's.

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Definitely is mine.

And I put up a query in QLH using the word "supposubly". Yeah. No, it wasn't supposed to be part of the voice. I just don't know how to spell "supposedly".

Renounce vs Denounce

i had to figure out the difference between a chasm and a gorge

The term 'water main'

Slightly off topic, but I need to use the term 'water main' right off that bat in my story, but do people generally understand what a water main is?

Justin K said:

Slightly off topic, but I need to use the term 'water main' right off that bat in my story, but do people generally understand what a water main is?

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I dunno.... Some folks might think water springs magically from the faucet, without the tedium of being brought along under the streets.