✅ Family refers to a united group of people, whether they’re related by blood or not. It can refer to a unit of parents and children, a whole lineage, or a group of people with a shared attitude or occupation (At this office, we’re all one big family).

✅ Folk refers to your relatives or more generally to people of a certain class or group (hard-working folk; Your folk live in the east, right?). It is often informal and when used in the plural can refer specifically to one's parents (My folks are coming to visit this weekend).

✅ Family and folk both refer to people united by a characteristic. Sometimes, that’s a general characteristic, and sometimes that characteristic is being related to you!

Impress your folks with your knowledge of these synonyms!

✅ A protest is an expression of dissent or disapproval, often a public one and often including a large number of people (They organized a protest after the closure of the theater).

✅ A demonstration is a public expression of opinion toward an issue, which often uses picketing, parading, or similar means to express that opinion (We drove past a climate change demonstration on our way home).

✅ Protest and demonstration mean similar things but have different connotations. Protest suggests intense emotions and can refer to violent or unlawful actions, whereas demonstration suggests more balanced emotions and peaceful actions.

Write about a demonstration that you’ve recently heard about with the help of Grammar Coach.

✅ Dump means to throw something out, especially in an unceremonious way (I decided to dump my old chairs).

✅ Discard means to throw something out, but it can also mean to cast something aside (He discarded the glasses and put on a false mustache; Discard this wrapper).

✅ Dump and discard mean very similar things.

✅ However, dump is more of a slang term, whereas discard is a more formal term.

Don’t discard these synonyms—they’ll be useful!