Vocab Links

How’s your vocabulary?

As readers, we build our vocabularies. As writers, we use that store of knowledge. The best way to find just the right word is to know lots of words.

Or, er, something like that. (Nothing quite like knowing you know the right word to have it just escape your grasp. Or is that just me?)

Right, so sometimes it’s a bit of a challenge to learn more words. Or, that could just be me as well. I’ve found a few interesting things online that help with the learning of new words.

• I found Free Rice several years ago. It’s a vocabulary quiz with the goal of ending world hunger. See what level you can achieve.


• Every Thursday, J.E. Fritz at Still Writing… does an etymology post. Wonder how some of the words you use every day came to be (or even some punctuation!)? She’ll tell you all about it.


• Want to try a word game? Every day on Twitter, Jocelyn Rish posts a new difficult word, with the challenge to us to write a Twitter tale using it (#15tt). I’m terrible at it, but I try each day. Join me?

Know any other places where one can improve one’s vocabulary?