To celebrate is to observe a day or commemorate an event with ceremonies or festivities. For example, it is customary to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a parade. This popular verb can also refer, a little more loosely, to having or participating in a party or an uninhibited good time. That’s where today’s synonym revel comes in. To revel is to make merry or to indulge in boisterous festivities. Though, a word to the wise, this carousing sense of revel is not as common as another. Revel is more commonly used these days to talk about taking great pleasure or delight in something: The Joycean scholar reveled in the fact that so many people were taking the day to celebrate Irish culture.

To remember something is to think of it again. This general verb describes the mechanism of recalling something to the mind by an act or effort of memory: I tried to remember the best route to the house. To reminisce is to recall past experiences or events, or to indulge in reminiscence. Whereas remembering can be a chore, reminiscing is more like taking a pleasant stroll down memory lane and stopping every so often along the way soak up the scenery. When we reminisce about the old days, for instance, we recall long-gone experiences fondly, in a sort of dreamy and perhaps even wistful or nostalgic state.

Unlucky is used a few different ways. It can describe things that are thought to bring bad luck, such as unlucky number, or it can describe people that have been unsuccessful in an endeavor or that been met with unfortunate circumstances. Hapless deals with the latter. This pitiable adjective is defined as “luckless” or “unfortunate,” and it most commonly describes people that simply can’t catch a break. The lamentable status of a hapless individual is reflected in the adjectives that regularly appear near it, such as poor (meaning unfortunate), helpless, hopeless, and miserable (the poor hapless fool was utterly hopeless!).