✅ Baffle and frustrate both refer to stopping someone’s progress or efforts.
✅ Baffle suggests preventing someone from accomplishing a purpose by confusing or perplexing them (The clue baffled them so much that they couldn’t solve the case).
✅ Frustrate is best when an outside force causes all efforts or attempts to be ineffectual and nothing ever comes from them (His lack of cooperation frustrated their plans).
✅ It can be a person who frustrates or baffles someone’s plans, but it’s more commonly a wider system, often a bureaucratic one, such as the legal system or local government (The plan for a new swimming pool was frustrated by building regulations).
Write about a plan that was frustrated with the help of Grammar Coach.
✅ Necessary is the best word to describe something vital for the fulfillment of a need (A working engine is necessary for the car to run).
✅ Essential describes something that is particularly necessary, without which there would be dire consequences (It’s essential to bring water on a camping trip).
✅ Necessary and essential can be used interchangeably, though essential has a stronger meaning.
✅ Both words can also be exaggerated or humorous ways to describe things that aren’t technically life or death, but are important in some way (My morning coffee is essential to my health and the health of those around me).
Try describing something that is necessary to you with the help of Grammar Coach.
✅ General is the best word to describe something belonging to, or held by a group of people collectively (A general sense of unease).
✅ Universal describes something found everywhere or belonging to everyone without an exception (The film received universal acclaim).
✅ The key difference between these words is that general allows some exceptions, whereas universal doesn’t.
✅ Universal can sometimes be used hyperbolically, as a more intense version of general (Americans have a universal love of peanut butter and jelly).
Try using universal in a sentence describing humans, with the help of Grammar Coach.