✅ A friend is a person, generally not related to you, that you feel connected to by a sense of affection (I went to dinner with my friend).
✅ A crony is a friend or pal, especially one of a group (She’s hanging out with a crony from school).
✅ Friend is a more positive word, whereas crony can have negative connotations.
✅ Crony can refer to an accomplice, and can also suggest someone whom a person in power has promoted to a certain position because of their friendship, rather than because of their qualifications (The mayor and his cronies were arrested yesterday).
Try writing a story about a crime boss and her crony with the help of Grammar Coach.
✅ The a is important in a few because few means a very small number, almost none, but a few means a small but still significant number (There’s a few cookies left).
✅ Several means more than two, but less than many (She visited several times).
✅ Several can refer to more or the same number as a few, but can have a more positive connotation (We were thrilled that several people attended the show; It was late, and only a few people attended the show).
There are several more synonyms for you to take a look at!
✅ Conclude and infer both mean to determine something by using logic, or by observing evidence (He concluded from the pile of mail that his neighbors were on vacation; Her tone of voice led me to infer she was upset).
✅ Conclude generally suggests a strongly supported conclusion (We concluded from the hundreds of bad reviews that it would be best to go to dinner elsewhere).
✅ Infer can also refer to determining something based on reasoning or evidence, but more often involves some element of guesswork or supposition (From her letter I inferred that she had some bad news to share when she came home).
✅ Infer has been used for centuries to mean to hint or suggest, although some say that it shouldn’t be used this way, and we should use imply instead.
Based on the fact that you’ve read this far, we’re going to infer that you want to check out these synonyms.