To give thanks is to express appreciation for something—in other words, to express gratitude. But the noun gratitude goes a little deeper. Gratitude is defined as the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful. The key difference is one of feeling versus expressing. Gratitude implies a warm or deep appreciation of personal kindness (a feeling). Grateful and thankful are, of course, both wonderful things to be, and fortunately they are not mutually exclusive. Go ahead, give thanks loudly as an expression of your deep gratitude—there's ample room at the table for both!

The verb eat, though tremendously useful, says very little about the manner in which one partakes in a meal. Slowly? Quickly? With gusto? That’s where big, flavorful verbs like gormandize come in handy: to gormandize is to eat greedily or ravenously. Gormandize comes from the noun of the same spelling, which originally skewed negative to refer to excessive eating, but in the 1800s picked up a degree of refinement, suggesting unrestrained enjoyment of fine foods, wines, and the like. When not gobbling up food, gormandize may be found devouring books, knowledge, or gossip.

The adjective serene means calm, peaceful, or tranquil. It is most commonly used to describe people who display a notably unruffled manner, or natural surroundings that are fair and calm. When applied to people, serene suggests dignity, composure, and graciousness. When applied to nature, it suggests mellowness. Unlike peaceful, serene is not used to describe relations, as between nations, or processes, such as transitions of power. In fact, serene, when not describing an individual's expression or demeanor, is more likely to turn up in descriptions of settings where people are scarce!