formal form

Question

Hi,I was looking for a list that can present formal synonyms of regular words. I couldn't find any reference in Google; however I found this : http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Colloquial-(Informal)-Writing which is very helpful. Anyway, I would appreciate it if anyone can provide some comprehensive resource in that area.Thanks.

Clive · Accepted Answer

http://thesaurus.com/

Yeganeh · Answer

Thank you Clive,
I was acquainted with the website. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm looking for a reference to learn from it. For instance, having a list of the most common words, with a categorization (e.g. verbs, adjectives, adverbs, among others), and presenting a paired list for replacement would be appropriate. (I tried to write formal! Did I do well?

).
Anyway, I guess you got what I'm looking for, I found a page that I made some flash cards out of it.

Take a look at this list, that I tried to accumulate. The stared ones are ones that I have problem to use them properly, I would appreciate it if you could explain them, of course the topic of the forum is not related to what I'm asking. I wanted to ask them separately, unless you had time.

Anyway, I found tips from place to place, but I couldn't find a good website to teach me such hints. For instance, I found out that using "former" and "latter" to reference to what I just said is quite a nice formal writing, and so on. I don't know how should I put that clearer, yet I guess you got what I meant. I'm desperately looking for a tutorial to escalate my level of writing.

Thanks,

Ord	INFORMAL/EVERYDAY	FORMAL/ACADEMIC
1	a lot of/ loads of/ plenty of	a great deal of /numerous/ several
2	a bit	Somewhat (before adj. or adv.)/ slightly
3	to get together	to collaborate with sbd on smth
4	to start/to begin	to initiate/to commence smth/v-ing
5	big	large (number/percentage), considerable
6	thing	device/object
7	stuff	material	*
8	to find out	to ascertain/discover	*
9	to do again	to repeat
10	to do well	to succeed
11	to set up	to establish
12	to cut down on	to reduce
13	to go up	to increase
14	to come up with	to create
15	to look into	to investigate
16	to go up and down	to fluctuate
17	to bring up a question	to raise a question
18	to get rid of	to eliminate	*
19	to turn down smth	to refuse
20	to turn out smth	to produce
21	to take smth back	to retract (a statement)	*
22	to put off smth	to postpone smth
23	to put up with	to tolerate
24	to put away smth	to save	*
25	to put down to smth	to attribute to
26	to come about	to occur
27	to give up	to relinquish
28	to go back/give back	return to swh/ smth
29	to give off smth	to produce (heat)
30	to give away	to betray
31	to carry out smth	to conduct	*
32	to seem	to appear
33	to climb	to ascend
34	to help	to assist/ aid
35	to stop	to cease
36	to use	to consume	*
37	to shorten	to decrease/ to abbreviate
37	to show	to demonstrate
38	to go	to depart
39	to want	to desire
40	to end	to finish/ to terminate
41	to tell	to inform
42	to keep	preserve/ retain
43	to say no	to reject
44	to free	to release/ to liberate
45	to mend/ to fix	to repair
46	to need	to require
47	to live	to reside
48	in the end	finally/ultimately
49	at once	immediately
50	at the same time	simultaneously/ concurrently
51	at first	initially
52	on and off	intermittently
53	mainly	principally/primarily
54	next	subsequently
55	again and again	repeatedly
56	so	therefore/ consequently
57	understanding	comprehension
58	lack	deficiency
59	chance	opportunity
60	sweat	perspiration
61	house	residence
62	sight	vision
63	friendly	amiable
64	whole	complete
65	lively	energetically/animated
67	lucky	fortunate
68	childish	immature/ infantile
69	wrong	incorrect/questionable
70	worse	inferior to
71	cheap	inexpensive
72	dim	indistinct
73	mad	insane
74	to lay back	to relax
75	in charge of	responsible for
76	enough	sufficient
77	better	superior to
78	clear	transparent
79	empty	vacant
80	to ask for	to require/ to request
81	hot (topic)	controversial
82	more and more	Increasingly/ unceasingly/non-stop
83	to get	to obtain/ to receive
84	bad	disappointing
85	to get worse	to deteriorate
86	horrible	unacceptable
87	to come in	to enter
88	to talk about	to discuss
89	to go down	to descend
90	to come up with	to suggest
91	to look at	to examine
92	to pin down	to determine
93	to experience the influence of	to be influenced
94	Let’s consider …	It is important to consider …
95	I love/like/prefer	Personally, I favour …
96	On top of that	Another point is …
97	Government must make laws	There is a need for laws
98	In a nutshell	To state it briefly/ In brief
99	Every coin has two sides	There are advantages and disadvantages to
100	by chance	Incidentally
101	to try	to attempt/ to endeavor
102	to swap	to exchange
103	as far as x goes	in respect of / with respect to
104	to skip	omit/not attend smth
105	by accident	accidentally
106	kids	infants/offsprings
107	O.K	acceptable/ satisfactory
108	to make up for	to compensate for
109	to catch on smth	to understand
110	to go down with a disease	to contract a disease
111	to go up	to increase
112	to get in touch with	to contact
113	to let somebody know	to inform
114	to call off	to cancel
115	to sort out	to resolve
116	to deal with	to handle/ to address
117	small	minimal/limited/ modest
118	to think of	to conceive of/imagine
119	about	an estimated, approximately, roughly
120	to do (research)	to carry out, perform, undertake
121	hard	difficult, problematic,challenging
122	to keep up	to maintain
123	a lot	a substantial amount, a considerable sum
124	stand for	denote, represent
126	next	adjacent
127	prove	confirm
128	rich	affluent, wealthy, prosperous
129	the same as	equivalent to
130	drink	beverage (count)
131	man	male
132	old people	senior citizens, retirees
133	crooks	offenders, lawbreakers
134	great, awesome	preferable, desirable
135	sick of, fed up with	dissatisfied with
136	feature	characteristic
137	before	Prior to
138	to think (that)	to assume (that)
139	Because	Owing to or due to the fact that/As a result of
140	Nobody can say	It is impossible to predict …
141	I think that	It seems that/ It could be argued that
142	About	Regarding/ Concerning
143	And	as well as
144	but	while/whereas
145	to write a cheque	to issue a checque
146	carefull/cautious	prudent (imprudent)/prudential
147	to check	to verify
148	to agree with	to be bound by
149	to go over	exeed
150	to hand / to give	to submit
152	In accordance with	Pursuant to
153	to involve	to entail
154	lost	inadvertently mislaid
155	to make sure	to ensure
156	to order	to authorise
157	to pay	to settle
158	to supply	to furnish
159	to take away	to withdraw
160	when we get …	On receipt of …
161	Whenever we like / want	Without prior notice …
162	One after the other	At regular intervals
163	There are no big differences between	No significant differences emerges between
164	This shows that	This demonstrates that
165	to put smth into action	To be implemented/ carried out
166	etc./ and so forth./ and so on.	among other examples
167	i.e	namely, / that is,
168	e.g	For example,
169	vs.	versus/as apposed of
170	nice/ cute	attractive
171	smart	intelligent
172	come	arrive
173	lifestyle	way of life / manner of life
174	19th century	The nineteenth century
175	workmate	colleague
176	tired	exhausted
177	drunk	intoxicated
178	sad	dejected
179	who	whom ( d?i t? tân ng?, sau gi?i t?)
180	to get your money back	refund your payment
181	to pay your bills	to settle your account
182	really	extremely
183	to go up to	to reach
184	to work	to function
185	breathing	respiration
186	meat-eater	carnivore
187	chance	opportunity
188	wrong	erroneous
189	died out	extinct
190	relevant	pertinent
191	relatives	kindred
192	copy	imitate
193	break	fracture
194	mix	blend
195	preference	predilection
196	to come across	to find
197	to do away with	to abolish
198	to build up	to accumulate
199	to finish off	to conclude
200	to back up	to support/to advocate
201	to put forward	propose
202	to put across	to express
203	to obey a law	to comply with a law
204	poor country	developing country
205	That’s why/ why	For this reason, … / … the reason for …
206	new	novel
207	dependence	surbodination
208	quarrel	debate/dispute
209	In the same way	Similarly,
210	to look for	to seek
211	way	manner/solution
212	money	currency
213	to imagine	to conceive / conceivably
214	place	location
215	viewpoint	stance
216	fast/quickly	rapidly/ as a matter of urgency
217	how much	to what extent (not applicable to price or amount)
218	when (conj)	At the time of …
219	In/For many years	During a considearble period of years
220	to make smth better /to get better	to improve/to upgrade
221	To put on weight	to gain weight
223	verb + not + any + noun	verb + no + noun
224	verb + not + many/much + noun	verb + few/little + noun
225	to give	to provide
226	as you can be seen	as can be seen
227	wood	timber
228	to describe	to depict
229	to learn by heart	to memorise
230	to go on	to continue
231	may be	possibly, perhaps
232	somehow	in a certain way
233	job	occupation
234	to take on	employ
235	to give	donate, contribute
236	dad	father
237	plane	aeroplane
238	(not) smoke.	to refrain from smoking
239	to follow these guidelines.	to adhere to these guidelines.
240	gran/granny/nana	grandmother
241	every year/ each year	annually
242	glasses	spectacles
243	shop	retail outlet
244	fridge	refrigerator
245	TV/ telly	television
246	boss	employer
247	change	transform
248	phone you back	return your call
249	bin man	refuse collector
250	and so on. / and so forth / etc.	among other examples. / or avoid using them

Clive · Answer

Sorry,but this list is way to big for me to review.

You seem to have collected a lot of good information.
The only brief advice I can offer is this.

If you want to write well, read a lot of good writing. But you probably already know this.

Clive

Yeganeh · Answer

Thank you. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Yeganeh · Answer

Hi Clive,
With your permission, I separate them to several lists and ask them in the forum.
I hope people help me to make the pairs better and better.

formal form

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