Thread: help with English sinonims, please...

Help me to distinguish between

1) refuse, reject, decline

2) strengthen, intimidate

And as for “refute”. Can I use it in regular life: “I refuted to my husband that he was wrong” Or it’s more for formal use?

Thanks.

refuse, reject and decline are close but strengthen and intimidate are not.

http://dictionary.reference.com/

Refute is rarely used in everyday conversation: I cannot remember ever using the word “I refuted to my husband that he was wrong” is not quite correct, perhaps, “I refuted what my husband had said”.

'Refute' is not a synonym of ‘deny’. To deny something is to state that it is not true. To refute something has got something to do with providing evidence to prove it is not true, ‘Sarah told my supervisor that I was late for work. I denied that I had arrived late but I was on my own so I could not refute the allegation’.

Hope this helps.

"I refused his offer"
"I declined his offer"
"I rejected his offer"

Hmmm i can see someone saying any of those.

Refuse seems to just be a fancy way to say "no".

Well, they all seem slightly different to me; I don't know why, they just are

Of course, they all have several meanings (refuse - pronounced slightly differently - can mean rubbish, and decline can mean to slope downwards). In relation to receiving an offer, decline is a polite form of refuse. These words are not interchangeable. For example, 'I refused to believe her' would not work as 'I rejected to believe her': maybe 'I rejected her explanation'. Wow, I didn't realise it was so complicated.

'I rejected his offer' is an interesting one, not wholly in line with the many meanings of reject. Reject has got something to do with getting rid of something you don't want like an organ transplant; or throwing out something that is useless; or turning down the terms of a business offer. In the sense of a general offer, about nothing serious, you could say, 'I rejected his offer' but saying 'I refused his offer' would often be better.

There is a sort of politeness hierarchy here decline, refuse to reject.

I wonder what the word for tomato is in Russian.

To decline is to politely say no.
To refuse is to say no strongly.
To reject is to say no without much consideration.

Originally Posted by Oddo

To reject is to say no without much consideration.

...So, I pulled together a team of experts and we reviewed all the available material. It took days, but, finally, we rejected the offer.......

You guys would have "rejected" the offer, if you were like businessmen being propsed with like, a big deal, or some product or something. you could have also refused the offer, or declined it

Originally Posted by Dogboy182

You guys would have "rejected" the offer, if you were like businessmen being propsed with like, a big deal, or some product or something. you could have also refused the offer, or declined it

yeh there isn't much difference. But decline doens't sound as strong as refused and refused doesn't sound as strong as reject.

Thanks a lot, guys. It was really helpful. Let me summarize that you’ve said.
Those three verbs don’t really have a big difference, everything depends on the point of view of particular person.
For example, I didn’t get a job. I say: “They refused to hire me”, because I was a little angry at them. My mom says: “She was declined”, because she didn’t want me to loose my face. And my enemy says maliciously: “She was rejected”. That’s right?

And one famous phrase that all Americans know is "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse." It's from the first Godfather movie.

also, spelling is "synonyms"

decline = отклонить
turn down = "завернуть" ("меня завернули на собеседовании")
refuse = отказать
reject = отбросить, отринуть.
spurn = отвергнуть (ещё сильнее - буквально "отпнуть")

Originally Posted by chubby

Thanks a lot, guys. It was really helpful. Let me summarize that you’ve said.
Those three verbs don’t really have a big difference, everything depends on the point of view of particular person.
For example, I didn’t get a job. I say: “They refused to hire me”, because I was a little angry at them. My mom says: “She was declined”, because she didn’t want me to loose my face. And my enemy says maliciously: “She was rejected”. That’s right?

Thanks a lot guys. It was really helpful. Let me summarize what you’ve said. The three verbs are not really very different, it depends on the person's point of view. For example, if I didn’t get a particular job, I could say: “They refused to hire me”, perhaps because I was a little angry with them. My mum could say: “They declined to hire him”, because she didn’t want me to loose face. And my enemy could say, maliciously: “He was rejected”. Is that right?

Well, the sentence structure is okay but the use of the word 'decline' is just a little bit off track - my suggestion is that you put this word to one side for the time being. 'Refuse' and 'Reject' cover most situations, especially with context and the use of inflection in speech.

The use of the words you mentioned tend to be used in business and more formal speech.

Here is what my wordweb has to say about Decline

Noun : Decline

Change toward something smaller or lower
A condition inferior to an earlier condition
A gradual decrease; as of stored charge or current
A downward slope

Verb:

Grow worse
Refuse to accept
Show unwillingness towards
Grow smaller
Go down
Of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives

the word is spelled "synonym", but we'll forgive your foible.

Let me throw in two other words into this vocabulary mosh-pit:

rebuff
repudiate

Have fun!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

What about: -

'less' and 'fewer'
'practical' and 'practicable'
'intensely' and 'intently'
'affect' and 'effect'
'tough' and 'bough'

And, in relation to a missing ', my favourite, 'Dicks in tray'

>Dick is the familiar name for a man called Richard, and
>An in-tray is used for papers comming into an office.

Originally Posted by майк

What about: -

'less' and 'fewer'
'practical' and 'practicable'
'intensely' and 'intently'
'affect' and 'effect'
'tough' and 'bough'

And, in relation to a missing ', my favourite, 'Dicks in tray'

>Dick is the familiar name for a man called Richard, and
>An in-tray is used for papers comming into an office.

In case anyone's wondering:
Fewer is usually the right word to use with nouns
e.g. Fewer people
Less is used with adjectives and adverbs and nouns which cannot be counted
e.g Less blossom

Intensely is with great strength
e.g The fire burned intensely
Intently is with great interest/attention
e.g. I listened intently to his story

Affect is the verb of the noun effect:
e.g. How greatly did this affect you?
e.g. This had a drastic effect.

Effect is also a word which means make
e.g. I effected my entrance

What is tough/bough? Is there a typo?
Not sure about practicable. I've never used it

Also: continuously means without stopping at all, continually means constantly restarting
e.g. It rained continuously for five hours
e.g. It rained continually for five days

Originally Posted by майк

'affect' and 'effect'.

Hehe. Lots of native English-speakers have these two confused.

Originally Posted by Oddo

What is tough/bough? Is there a typo?

I couldn't resist throwing this one in. How is anyone meant to know that:

Tough - strong, resilient / Bough - any main branch of a tree

But, 'tough' is pronounced "tuff" and 'bough' - "bow"!!!

'Practical' means useful in practice, and 'practicable', means capable of being carried out in action: that which is practicable is often not practical