Everyday English Vocabulary: Definitions and Examples

Essential Vocabulary for Everyday English Communication

Money and Shopping

• Bargains: Something cheap.
• Browsing: Looking around in a shop, comparing prices.
• Can't afford: Can't pay for it.
• Clubbed together: Saving money with someone.
• Designer label: Exclusive named brand.
• Economical with the truth: Not the whole truth.
• Fork out: Spend a lot of money on something.
• Help themselves: To take as much as they wanted.
• Overdrawn: With no money.
• Redundancies: Firing employees.
• Splash out: Spend an extravagant sum of money.
• Stingy: Unwilling to give or spend; not generous.
• Tax havens: Not paying taxes.

Media and Communication

• Billboard: A big publicity advertisement.
• Biased: Favorable to some ideas.
• Broadcast: Emit on mass media.
• Censorship: Not being able to express yourself.
• Catch on: Became popular and successful.
• Come out: To be made public or revealed.
• Dubbed: Translate a film.
• Foreign correspondent: International journalist.
• Get across: Make you understand.
• Gossip: Sensational news.
• Hoax: Practical joke.
• Live coverage: Live broadcast.
• Make up: Invent.
• Pressing: Urgent, needing attention.
• Rave reviews: A good review.
• Search engine: A program that searches for and identifies items in a database.
• Tabloid: Gossip press.
• Telling tales: Accusing someone.

Actions and Events

• Blow up: Explode or make something explode.
• Breakthrough: Important development.
• Broken out: Started suddenly.
• Crack down: Take strong action against.
• Die out: Become extinct.
• Do away with: Get rid of something.
• Draw somebody's attention: Attract someone's attention.
• Go on strike: Stop working as a form of protest.
• Launch: Throw or introduce something new.
• Make a fuss: Worry too much about something.
• Own up: Confess something.
• Take over: Bought out.
• Tip off: A piece of information.
• Try out: To test something to see whether it suits you.

Other Useful Words and Phrases

• Bluntly: Direct, not polite.
• Boarding: A school that you live at.
• Bombarded: Attacked with too much of something.
• Borrowed: Taken temporarily with the intention of returning.
• Casualties: Deaths and injuries.
• Denies: To state that something is not true.
• Desensitized: So used to something that we barely notice it.
• Deserve: To earn something because of the way you have behaved.
• Dry: Not wet, free from moisture.
• Economic downturn: Economic crisis.
• Every now and then: Occasionally.
• Exploit: Make full use of and derive benefit from.
• Fake: Not true.
• Fall for: Believe something.
• Forecast: Prediction.
• Frown on: Not to accept something.
• Junk: Old or discarded articles that are considered useless or of little value.
• Live off: To be alive.
• Milestone: A significant or important event in history.
• Pigs might fly: An expression of disbelief.
• Pretend: Make believe something that is not true.
• Purse: Follow.
• Rely on: Depend on.
• Resentful: Feeling bitter or indignant.
• Shiver: A trembling or shaking motion.
• Stand out: To be distinctive within a group.
• Two-timing: Cheating on someone.
• Up to: A maximum of something.
• Union: Group of people who fight for workers' rights.
• Venues: The location where something takes place.
• Wealthy: Rich.
• Well-off: In a good or satisfactory manner.
• White lie: Innocent lie.
• Whopper: A big lie.