✅ Shelter means to protect, especially from or as if from bad weather, attack, or similar (I shelter stray animals).

✅ Harbor means to offer refuge or protection to a person or to a feeling in the mind (He’d been harboring doubt about his cousin for years).

✅ Both shelter and harbor can also mean to conceal, hide, or illicitly protect people who are in danger.

✅ Harbor is used more often in this sense than shelter (She was known to shelter runaways; The community harbored criminals).

✅ Paradise refers to a place that offers happiness, delight, or bliss (The spa was a complete paradise).

✅ Utopia refers to an ideal, imagined place, especially one which is politically or socially perfect (We’re not living in a utopia where everyone has the same opportunities).

✅ Paradise particularly suggests a heavenly environment, whereas utopia suggests a place that has a perfect political or social system.

✅ Both words can also refer to more mundane environments that are in some way perfect, ideal, or fun within a specific context (The store was a musician’s paradise; This is utopia for anyone who likes sports).

✅ Scrappy describes a person who tends to argue or will fight with spirit and determination despite obstacles (Our team might not be the most skilled, but we’re all dedicated and pretty scrappy).

✅ Eristic describes a person who likes controversy or who likes to argue for the sake of it (She wrote an eristic reply to my suggestions).

✅ Both words can also describe behaviors or instances of arguing or fighting.

✅ Scrappy is a pretty informal word, whereas eristic is both uncommon and formal. Split the difference with words like argumentative and contentious!