Intermediate+ Word of the Day: lodge

A lodge is a house or cabin used by hunters or hikers as a temporary place to stay. Nowadays, in US English, a lodge is a hotel or motel, and also the meeting place of a certain organization and…

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Intermediate+ Word of the Day: crop

A crop is a plant or its product, either while growing or when gathered, or the amount of yield produced in one season. It’s used figuratively to mean ‘a group of people or things that occur together.’ Crop is also a close cut of something, such as…

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Intermediate+ Word of the day: smear

To smear means ‘to spread an oily or wet substance on something,’ like we do with jam or butter on toast. Smear also means ‘to stain or spot with a wet or oily substance’ and ‘to blur by rubbing or by getting wet.’ Figuratively, to smear is…

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Intermediate+ Word of the Day: rout

A rout is a defeat that is followed by a retreat and dispersal, usually a disorderly one, or more generally, any overwhelming defeat or disorderly group of people. As a verb, to rout means…. to defeat completely and to make a group disperse in a disorderly way. Rout has another unrelated meaning as a verb, ‘to dig up or turn over something’ like animals do with their snouts (a snout is the nose of animals like pigs). More generally, usually followed by out, it means ‘to find or get by searching or…

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