✅ Use thankful and grateful when you want to show appreciation for something you’ve received (I was thankful for the gift; I was grateful for the opportunity).

✅ You can be grateful and thankful for the same things. The difference is primarily in how you express your feelings: the meaning of thankful refers to explicitly giving thanks, but grateful is more likely to refer to a warm or deep appreciation that may be expressed in all kinds of ways.

✅ Thankful can also suggest giving thanks to a higher power, and suggests that you feel saved from bad circumstances (thankful for being spared; thankful for my blessings).

Find some new ways to express how grateful you are with these synonyms!

✅ People refers to a body of individuals who are brought together by the same ideals, culture, or language (the British people).

✅ Nation refers to a body of individuals, either current or historical, who live or lived together under one system of government. This can be, but isn’t always, the same thing as a country (the Dene Nation).

✅ While nation and people can be used interchangeably, nation puts the emphasis on the idea of a common system of government or a single political entity (European nations).

✅ It’s best to use nation to describe a group of people who have, had, or want a shared government. Individuals in a nation, however, might be part of different peoples.

Try using the word nation in a paragraph on common goals with the help of Grammar Coach.

✅ Obscure and murky both describe things that aren’t clear because of certain circumstances. These can be physical things or non-physical things (The facts were obscure; The details of the case were murky).

✅ When used to describe physical things, obscure suggests that something isn’t clear because of interference with the light or your vision (He sat in an obscure corner of the restaurant). Murky suggests a kind of darkness that’s thick or misty, and hard to see through (They suddenly materialized from the murky shadows).

✅ If someone’s meaning is obscure, then it is hard to understand because they haven’t expressed themselves well. Murky can also describe arguments, ideas, and thoughts, but is less common in that context.

✅ Murky is so often used with the word water that it is now part of a metaphor (I couldn’t navigate the murky waters of his argument).

Make your meaning less obscure with these synonyms for murky.