✅ Rely means to depend on or put your trust in someone (I know I can rely on my friends when I need help).
✅ Lean means to depend on someone (My best friend and I lean on each other when we find it hard to cope).
✅ Lean particularly suggests trusting in someone’s emotional or personal support, whereas rely is a little more general (I rely on the rulebook to make sure I don’t make a mistake; I hope my family feels they can lean on me when they need to).
✅ A miser is a stingy person, often one who lives in unnecessarily uncomfortable circumstances in order to save money (A millionaire lives in that run-down house, but he’s such a miser you’d never know he had money).
✅ A churl is also a stingy person, especially one who is mean or unpleasant (She’s such a churl that she makes other people pay for her even though she can afford to pay herself).
✅ Miser and churl both refer to someone who is more than just frugal; they spend as little money as possible and are often rude and unpleasant about it.
✅ Sometimes, miser and churl can refer to someone who is stingy with things other than money, such as love and affection (She was a miser with praise; He was a churl with his attention).
✅ Poised describes someone who is composed, dignified, and sure of themselves (I tried to make sure I looked poised as I walked into the cafeteria).
✅ Collected describes someone who is calm and self-controlled (The captain was collected even as the crew panicked).
✅ Poised and collected both describe someone who is controlling themselves, generally in a situation in which doing so is difficult.
✅ Collected suggests keeping it together in a difficult or stressful environment (I try to always seem collected, even when I don’t know what I’m doing), while poised suggests having a sense of dignity and self-assuredness (I admired his poised demeanor).