Words for All Occasions

It pays to have the right words at your disposal, no matter what the situation. Try using some of the words below when you have the opportunity.

You win the lottery. How do you feel? Maybe jubilant, elated, euphoric, or ecstatic?

You want to recommend a book that you're reading: Rather than saying it's merely a "good" book, describe it as absorbing, engrossing, or riveting.

A few alternatives to "laughing": chortling (coined by Lewis Carroll); chuckling; giggling (mostly the province of teenage girls?); guffawing (exclusive to older guys?); tittering.

A "friendly" or "nice" person: use something fresh, such as affable (Larry David was just trying to be that in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm); amiable ("Why wasn't he amiable in his lifetime?," Mrs. Dilber wonders in A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim); gregarious; personable.

Answers to February 27 Quiz

The unforgettable Spy magazine once called Nancy Reagan a "pinch-faced doxy."
The novel Running With Scissors featured a "dry-cleaned son."
The words "staggeringly popular" were uttered in Monty Python's cheese shop sketch.
"Out, vile jelly!" is from Shakespeare's King Lear.
Woody Allen films: "homunculus" is from Manhattan and "jejune" is from Love and Death.
Mel Brooks' complaint about failing to get a "harrumph" out of a certain person was spoken in Blazing Saddles.