Synonym Circuit Solution #256 Explained - Nov 18 2024

Hello and welcome to the first ever Synonym Circuit Solution Explained article! In this series we'll be revealing solutions to the Daily and Expert Puzzles, talking about the definitions that make up those solutions, and occasionally digging into interesting language facts and linguistic concepts.

Daily Puzzle #256 sage > feeling

We start our daily puzzle with synonyms for sage: discerning, insightful, perceptive, prudent, and more - mostly tying into sage's adjective definition "wise through reflection and experience." We also see a couple synonyms for sage's noun form "one distinguished for wisdom" such as scholar and savant. Sage also has a plant meaning - a European perennial mint with grayish-green aromatic leaves (and its light grayish green color), which is pictured above.

Our goal word today is feeling, which has multiple noun forms related to physical sensation, emotions, beliefs, atmosphere, and more, as well as adjective definitions "sensitive," and "expressing emotion or sensitivity." It's also the gerund (verb form ending in "-ing") of the verb to feel. Since finding our way to the right tense and part of speech can be a challenge in Synonym Circuit, I immediately notice that one of sage's synonyms is also a gerund - discerning, so that will be my first selection.

Discerning only has one definition - it's an adjective that means "showing insight and understanding." For synonyms we see many other gerunds - beholding, catching, noticing, regarding, perceiving, and more. I want to stick with a gerund so I will definitely be selecting one from this list. Perceiving catches my eye, as I'm thinking the verb to perceive can certainly mean "to feel." Given that we have the same tense and part of speech as feeling, I'm able to create a 2 link Synonym Circuit with the shared definition "having a vague awareness of" for both perceiving and feeling.

Solution: sage > discerning > perceiving > feeling

Expert Puzzle #256 sage > stump

Today's Expert Puzzle was solved by BTSrl in 3 links, which is the Global Record at of the time of this writing. This player chose to start with the noun form of sage defined as "one distinguished for wisdom" and to aim for the verb form of stump meaning "to move heavily or clumsily."

Selecting scholar as the first synonym, we see synonyms mostly for its first two noun meanings: scholar as in "teacher" and scholar as in "expert." Among this list appear to be mostly other nouns, but a couple synonyms stick out to me as having alternate meanings in addition to their noun forms. Adept is both an adjective and a noun meaning an expert. I know the many adjective meanings of sharp, but I was not aware that it also has a noun definition "a person with a high level of knowledge or skill in a field." Merriam-Webster gives the example usage "the computer sharp that the rest of the staff turns to whenever their PCs act up" - which is new to me! I love when Synonym Circuit helps me learn new vocab.

Lastly, I notice dab, which I know mostly as a noun meaning "a very small amount," or as a verb meaning "to smear" or "to pat." I did not know that there is a noun definition for dab meaning "expert." M-W gives us this example: "a dab at finding unappreciated collectibles and reselling them at a considerable profit." It looks like this usage is chiefly British, so I'm not surprised it's new to me, an American. I didn't need to know that meaning though, in order to recognize it in the list of synonyms for scholar, and to select it in an effort to get me to the part of speech I'm looking for (verbs).

When we click dab, we see an overwhelming list of many synonyms. We are trying to get to stump, and our Global Record Holder BTSrl was looking for synonyms for its definition "to move heavily or clumsily." With that in mind, they chose pound, which has a matching verb form definition "to move heavily or clumsily," as in "he was pounding down the road as fast as he could run."

I have to say, I don't know that this is one I would have been able to solve as efficiently as our Global Record Holder did, since I got pretty stumped and was only able to think of the definition of stump meaning "to frustrate the progress or efforts of." So big congratulations to BTSrl, and thanks for teaching me a few new word meanings!

Solution (by BTSrl): sage > scholar > dab > pound > stump

Thanks for reading and thanks for playing!