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I am not talking about homonyms/synonyms/homophones.

This fill in the blank question sparked my curiosity:

The Tower Of Pisa attracts visitors from all over who flock to Pisa to see one of the greatest architectural ________ in the world.
(A) weirdnesses (B) oddities (C) abnormalities (D) deviations

As you might observe, I am talking about words with almost similar meaning but distinct usage. By "distinct usage", I mean that, even after having a similar meaning, these words cannot be substituted for one another, without making the construction look awkward.

For example, the word "abnormalities" could fit the meaning in the above sentence, but it certainly makes the construction of the sentence awkward.

I've already googled the internet and have only received list of homonyms, synonyms, or homophones.

My purpose: I wish to learn such groups of words.

My question: What resources are out there on the internet (or offline) - or how can I make use of the ones that already exist - to achieve my purpose?

UPDATE: I am looking for resources. This should be, and is, in my opinion a fact-based (and NOT opinion-based) question. This question doesn't IMHO deserve the close-votes.

Also, once I have access to (say) a word-list, which lists words in groups as I've described above, then I can surely look online for that word's usage. So, the thing that " You can look at word lists, but you won't learn how the words are used in context without reading them as they're used in context." doesn't apply.

tl;dr: I just need a collection of such groups of words, if there exists one.

Glorfindel
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Gaurang Tandon
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  • Please comment to request clarification or provide suggestions! Thanks! I didn't post this question on languagelearning.SE because (1) that site seems more about general patterns in learning languages (2) i don't know if this pattern of word meanings and usage is common to several other languages, ive assumed it to be unique to English. – Gaurang Tandon Sep 29 '17 at 11:17

1 Answers1

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You're not going to like this answer, because there is no quick way to learn it.

You're going to have to read.

Read a lot.

Read at a higher level than the average news article. I have built up an intuition for the vocab by seeing thousands of examples in text.

Glubbdrubb
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  • Of course, that is the one precise way to learn almost anything related to English, but I guess I'll keep it as a last resort. – Gaurang Tandon Sep 29 '17 at 11:30
  • I feel like this is really the only answer to what is essentially a very broad question. If you want to know how people use similar but slightly different words, then you just have to read a lot, listen a lot, ask a lot of questions, and figure out how people actually use the words in practice. – stangdon Sep 29 '17 at 14:38
  • Yep. This is the correct answer... sorry. You can look at word lists, but you won't learn how the words are used in context without reading them as they're used in context. Reading a lot is the only way. – DoWhileNot Sep 29 '17 at 16:17
  • This is the only valid answer, and would be valid in any language. The only way to know both the real meaning of words is to hear them used by those who speak the language well*. – Andrew Sep 30 '17 at 22:55