I looked up the Synonym's for "Refreshing" and there were a few I found but what confuses me is figuring out WHEN and HOW to use exactly each and every one of them. Revitalize Invigorate Rejuvenate Refresh Replenish Restore So.. How am I supposed to know how to use each one appropriately in a sentence? There are just so many..
This is why thesauri (?) are bad. If you need to ask when to use a word you find in one, you shouldn't use that word (or that thesaurus). As you've been told a ridiculous number of times now, the only way to learn how and when and why to use a certain word is to read a lot, and subsequently write a lot. If, for some reason, you are desperate to use a synonym from a thesaurus that you don't understand, look it up in a good dictionary and pay attention to the specifics of the definition and especially read the examples it gives. But really, to steal mammamaia's line P), you should lock up your thesaurus until you no longer need it.
Read. If you read enough books, you will have seen each of these words used many, many times, and the nuances will become clear, and the word will be absorbed into your own personal vocabulary. That's how it works. You've got to read.
Keep on looking - look up their specific definitions as well and read them carefully. There should be differences. Think about which one works best. Invigorating is a word you might use for taking a walk - it gives you energy and puts colour in your cheeks, but might not actually "refresh" you since you will also get hot and sweaty. If you shower in cool water afterwards you'd be refreshed as you'd feel like you do at your best, similar to rejuvenate, but that word's origins come from being about age - to be rejuvenated, literally, you feel younger rather than just cleaner or more full of energy, so use it for more extreme sentences, like when you've worked non-stop for a month and then wake up after a 16 hour sleep and it's all behind you and you have a life again. Replenish is about building up stores - in the context of refreshing this means energy levels, but you can also replenish or restore goods, such as shelf-stacking is replenishing a shop. The shop certainly doesn't feel fresher afterwards. You can see how each word wanders further from the definition. You CAN use them in a specific sentence: "I felt [any of the above] after [certain event that makes you feel better]" but each word can be used for other things too.
I agree with what's been said already, and here's my two cents: you can't go overboard with the synonyms. Your writing shouldn't be plain, but that doesn't mean you have to avoid simple words completely. Replacing 'bad' with 'horrible', 'dreadful', etc every time is going to get old. You have to vary the useage of words.
Well yeah I've been reading constantly.. Its just hard to understand sometimes. Too many words to keep up with
Just keep reading. And you're not obligated to look up every word that you don't understand - it's fine to guess at the meaning from the context and keep on going. Or, if you're confused about so many words that the reading isn't enjoyable, then make an effort to choose books with simple, clean direct language, rather than dense overwritten books. ChickenFreak
That's the beauty of language If we had one word to describe one thing, we wouldn't have much good literature out there, would we? It should come naturally though as you get older, your grasp of the English language i.e the knowledge of when to use words and when not to
You're biased because you've already experienced the system we have. Your complex human mind views the hypothesised system as "simple", and therefore you find it to be beneath you, when really, it's just different, and the literature that we might find in such a system might be even more beautiful since it could have the bonus for inherent and implicit meanings beyond what the words say.
Synonyms are just words! Just keep reading, and look at the context that the words you don't understand are in. The more you'll read, the more you'll learn (as people on this forum have told you countless times). But seriously, stop looking at them synonyms. They are words you don't know, that have a similar meaning to words that you may or may not know. And please, dude, step away the thesaurus.
Matrix: If you aren't comfortable with using a word, don't use it. If you come across a word in your reading that you don't quite understand, then look it up, and check sample sentences. A thesaurus is a shortcut that might not get you anywhere at all.
Permissable use for a thesaurus: You know there's another word for the one you typed, and the one you typed feels a bit off -- but what is that word, again? Darn, it's... Almost had it. I'm gonna right-click>thesaurus. There! That's the one I was trying to think of!
If you have more than one word to choose from, this is were style comes in to play. There is not necessarily a right or wrong word, it can simply be a matter of choice. It is up to you to decide which word to use e.g. It's been a hard day. It's been a tiring day. It's been one grueling day. It has been one hard slog. It is up to the writer to choose which word fits or flows best within the piece he/she is writing.
