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What are some concepts that we have a lot of words for?

Asked by DominicX (28808points) May 7th, 2012

A long time ago I asked a question about exact synonyms, words that are almost completely interchangeable in almost all contexts, and such a thing was quite rare.

But what about a concept in English that has many words for it? They might not all mean the exact same thing, but they may more or less have the same meaning.

What made me think of this was the case of a saying, also known as a truism, an axiom, an aphorism, an adage, a gnome, an apothegm, a proverb, a maxim, etc.

While those words all have nuances that differentiate them, for example, adage and proverb are more similar than axiom and maxim, but, they more or less carry the same idea of a “terse expression of truth”.

Any other concepts that we have many words for?

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