Welcome to 2021, synonym seekers! To welcome someone is to greet their arrival with pleasure. To go a step further, we’d also like to embrace the new year (and our loved ones, but at a safe distance!). To embrace is not only to hug, but also to receive someone or something gladly or eagerly. It can also mean to accept or avail oneself of something, as in: “The new year is a time we can embrace new practices, like yoga or eating more green vegetables.” At a time when the future seems so uncertain, in 2021, let's resolve to embrace the present, or, as they say in Latin, carpe diem!

Someone or something that is bubbly is lively, enthusiastic, or, in the case of carbonated beverages, literally full of bubbles. There are many synonyms for bubbly, but while you would never call someone carbonated, you might refer to a particularly vivacious or irrepressible friend as effervescent. This ebullient adjective means having or giving off bubbles of gas, as well as showing enthusiasm, excitement, or liveliness. An effervescent person is someone for whom suppression is unlikely or impossible, but why would we want to stem their enthusiasm? Now that 2020 is almost over, be effervescent with joy!

When something decreases, it lessens or diminishes in size, quantity, strength, or power. Another way we can say "decrease" is with the verb wane. It may be most familiar from the lunar realm, as it describes how the size of the illuminated portion of the moon's surface decreases after a full moon. Beyond the moon's transition between phases (with its antonym wax), wane can apply to more intangible things like influence and attention. Energy and enthusiasm may wane as we approach the end of the year, and, not coincidentally, wane also means to draw to a close or to approach an end, as in: "the year 2020 wanes (finally)!"