✅  Prepare is the perfect word to use in the context of getting something ready (prepare the room for the guests).

✅  Contrive is the best word to use when you want to emphasize the ingenuity involved in planning or making something happen (contrive a way to get what you want).

✅  Contrive also can imply a level of cleverness or shrewdness that seems like trickery, and it can suggest dishonesty or manipulation.

✅  Prepare and contrive are often used in pretty different circumstances, but you can both prepare and contrive things like plans (prepare the students' plan of study; she contrived an escape plan).

Prepare yourself for these contrive synonyms.

✅  Expand and dilate both refer to things getting larger. Expand means to get bigger in scope, size, and volume (The business is expanding). Dilate typically means to get wider or larger, especially in terms of circular things increasing in circumference (Her pupils dilated).

✅  Expand is a more general word (expand your horizons), whereas dilate is used in specific circumstances, often to describe medical or biological things (This medicine will dilate the blood vessels).

✅  Dilate is most often applied to the widening of the pupils, blood vessels, or the cervix during labor.

Expand your vocabulary with these synonyms for dilate.

✅  Ask and inquire are both commonly used in the context of posing a question.

✅  Inquire is the more formal of the two (May I inquire about the price?). Ask is more general—it can also be used to request things (I asked for a glass of water).

✅  Inquire often implies you’re asking about something specific, or asking with a specific motivation or intent. It’s usually followed with the words after, into, or about (I’m calling to inquire about the position).

Ask yourself whether you know any other synonyms for inquire.