✅ A pledge is something that is given as security for the payment of a debt and that will be forfeited if the debt is not paid (The watch served as a pledge to secure the loan).

✅ A surety is a promise given in order to protect against loss or nonpayment of debt (The security deposit served as a surety against any damages).

✅ Both of these terms can refer to collateral or simply to a solemn promise or assurance of something not monetary.

✅ Ecstatic means that someone is full of joy (She was ecstatic when she found out she had won the grand prize).

✅ Elated means that someone feels particularly happy or proud (I was elated when my poem was published in a magazine).

✅ Both of these words suggest that someone is feeling intense or overwhelming happiness.

✅ Ecstatic emphasizes a happiness so great that it’s overpowering or even hysterical (He was so ecstatic that he had to calm down with an herbal tea).

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✅ Okay means that something is tolerable, neither especially good nor especially bad (The new restaurant is okay).

✅ Middling means that something is mediocre, not good or bad but also uninteresting or uninspiring (The essay was middling).

✅ Both of these terms describe things that are not really good or bad but somewhere in the middle.

✅ Okay and middling can also both mean that you’re in decent health (I’m feeling okay; I’m middling, but at least I’m on the mend).