There’s nothing more ordinary than boredom, the restless or weary state that comes from not being interested in any pursuit available to you (the boredom of a long commute). Ennui, a borrowing from French, is boredom taken more seriously. Ennui can suggest a more profound, philosophical or spiritual condition rather than lack of interest (existential ennui; suburban ennui; adolescent ennui). Although the expression “die of boredom” is one of the most common contexts for the word, ennui tends to be treated more as an actual illness or malaise: people are said to suffer from ennui and to overcome it. Angst, frustration, despair, and loneliness are some common companions of ennui.

Obtain and procure refer to getting something, or gaining possession of it, through some effort or process. Obtain is the general word for acquiring something using effort or by request (obtained a ticket for the show; obtain permission). Procure is an everyday word, in business and governmental contexts, for acquiring necessary supplies and equipment. In more general usage, however, procure suggests making a special effort to get something that may be difficult to obtain (managed to procure concert tickets). Procure is frequently used of necessities that conditions have made difficult to get (procuring organs to save lives, procuring food during wartime) and of illegal or illegally-obtained items, such as drugs and weapons.

Exceed can refer to going over or beyond a quantifiable or acceptable limit (exceed the speed limit; exceed their ability) or, more positively, to doing better than was anticipated (exceed our expectations). The range of this last sense extends to going beyond the outermost limits of something—or what seemed the outermost (a technology that will exceed the limits of brain imaging as we know it), and here it overlaps with the meaning of transcend. To transcend suggests both going beyond and rising entirely above the limits of something. A great speech that transcends the occasion it was written for, will have more than historical interest in the future because its truths have a broader reach. Frequent objects of transcend include boundaries, race, politics, division.