Writers Free Reference

Quiz on commonly confused words

Maintained by Charley Brindley


If you were studying for your education online bachelor degree or perhaps homeschooling your children, this quiz would be very useful. Learn more about the benefits of a college education at our site today!




Thanks to Dr. Lederer at Richard Lederer 's Verbivore for this quiz. Visit "the web site woven for wordaholics, logolepts, and verbivores. Carnivores eat meat; herbivores eat plants and vegetables; verbivores devour words. If you are heels over head (as well as head over heels) in love with words, tarry here a while to graze or, perhaps, feast on the English language. Ours is the only language in which you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway and your nose can run and your feet can smell."

The Quiz

1. anchors away/aweigh
2. to wait with baited/bated breath
3. to grin and bare/bear it
4. sound bite/byte
5. bloc/block voting
6. a ceded/seeded player
7. champing/chomping at the bit
8. a full complement/compliment of
9. to strike a responsive chord/cord
10. just deserts/desserts
11. doesn't faze/phase me
12. to have a flair/flare for
13. foul/fowl weather
14. hail/hale and hardy/hearty
15. a hair's/hare's breadth/breath
16. a seamless hole/whole
17. a friend in need is a friend in deed/indeed
18. to declare it doesn't jibe/jive
19. on the lam/lamb
20. to the manner/manor born/borne
21. marshal/martial law
22. to test one's medal/meddle/metal/mettle
23. might/mite and mane/main
24. beyond the pale/pail
25. to peak/peek/pique one's interest
26. pi/pie in the sky
27. pidgin/pigeon English
28. plain/plane geometry
29. to pore/pour over an article
30. praying/preying mantis
31. a matter of principal/ principle
32. rack/wrack one's brain
33. to give free rain/reign/rein
34. raise/raze Cain/cane
35. to pay rapped/ rapt/wrapped attention
36. with reckless/wreckless abandon
37. to reek/wreak/wreck havoc
38. right/rite of passage
39. a shoe-/shoo-in
40. to sic/sick the dog on someone
41. sleight/slight of hand
42. spit and/spitting image
43. the old stamping/stomping grounds
44. to stanch/staunch the flow
45. dire straights/straits
46. a toe-/tow-headed youth
47. to toe/tow the line
48. to swear like a trooper/trouper
49. all in vain/vane/vein
50. to wet/whet your appetite


How well did you do? Answers below.
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If any of your answers don't jibe with those listed below, check their definitions in your dictionary.

1. aweigh
2. bated
3. bear
4. bite
5. bloc
6. seeded
7. champing or chomping
8. complement
9. chord
10. deserts
11. faze
12. flair
13. foul
14. hale/hearty
15. hair's breadth
16. whole
17. indeed
18. jibe
19. lam
20. manner born
21. martial
22. mettle
23. might/main
24. pale
25. pique
26. pie
27. pidgin
28. plane
29. pore
30. praying
32. principle
32. rack
33. rein
34. raise Cain
35. rapt
36. reckless
37. wreak
38. rite
39. shoo-
40. sic
41. sleight
42. spitting
43. stamping
44. stanch
45. straits
46. tow
47. toe
48. trooper
49. vain
50. whet


Click to visit Richard Lederer 's Verbivore for much more on words and how to use them.

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