After creating my own word game (Wording) I thought a lot more about words. Here's a list of words that I just now realized are very related. Usually I learned one of them as a kid, then learned the other much later and so I never made the obvious connection between the two. When I learned a word I would just memorize it, and not think about why it's called that.
1. incredible and credible
When something is incredible, it just mean it's not credible, like not believable. The credibitity is not there.
2. spectacular and spectacle
I didn't learn what a "specatacle" means until well into adulthood. But when I did, I never made the connection to spectacular.
This has a lot of potential. It's so... of potence.
Your ideal scenario is just "of your idea."
Massive is a word you learn at age 4. Then in high school phyiscs, you learn about mass. Then many many years later you realize these are the same word. Massive... it just has lots of mass.
This should be self-evident.
Since I pronouce lever as lee-ver, I didn't make the connection to leverage (pronounced lev-rigde) until just recently. A lever is something that gives you leverage.
This is a harder to spot one. Generic just means of the genre. Like the most plain version example of the genre, is generic.
You learn cavity meaning that your tooth is bad, so you never connect it to "cave" until you learn other definitions of cavity as any big indent that's cave-like.
Only when I used the phrase "in essence" then realized I could instead use "essentially" I realized: Wow these 2 words are almost interchangable. Oh wait they are literally the same word and I never noticed.
When you aviod something you are becoming void of it. They are just like "awake" and "wake".
12. particular and particle
Circular = like a circle. Particular = like a particle.
It's urgent because you are urged to do it.
That's fantastic because it's unbelievable, it's so fantasy-like.
To realize something is to make it real in your mind.
This is the most obvious one. Pressure is just the amount of pressing. Since it's pronounced presh-er I didn't see it was just the word press. I thought they were completely unrelated.
Do you have any similar words like this? Leave a comment. You don't need to make an account, or enter your email address or anything.