If you have clout, you have strong influence or sway over something. This noun has a long history of being used to describe political influence—and indeed, clout is still most frequently found in discussion of people or entities that are able to drive outcomes in governmental matters. But clout is also used to discuss economic power. You may even find clout used to refer to the influence of a person on social media with oodles of attentive followers.

When it comes to meanings of words, there’s denotation, which is a word’s explicit or direct meaning, and there’s connotation, a word’s associated or implicit meaning. For example, the word frugal on its surface means (denotes) efficient money management (nothing wrong with that!). The connotation of this word, however, might be stinginess or even avariciousness. As any synonym seeker knows, the connotation of a word varies greatly depending on context!

As you might guess from the look of it, judicious is all about sound judgment—but not necessarily in the courtroom. This adjective means “having, exercising, or characterized by good or discriminating judgment.” Someone who is judicious is sensible, levelheaded, and well advised in their decisions and actions. The adjective judicial (so close in spelling and very easy to confuse) is the better choice for describing matters pertaining to judgment in courts of justice.