effect
cause
produce
realize
can indicate the area of such a figure that is nearest to its outside edges: They walked about the border of the park. The word can also refer to a circumscribing boundary that contrasts distinctly with what it encloses and thus sets off or frames the contained area: a black border around the portrait of the dead president; a modest border of lawn around the house. In this sense, the word may imply an added, decorative edge: the lace border of her handkerchief. Border can, however, refer like edge to a dividing line, as in its common use for the boundary between two countries: the border between Canada and the United States. Margin emphasizes exclusively one aspect of border, pointing to the outer area circumscribing something, an area that is often distinct in appearance from what it encloses. Unlike border, however, margin more frequently refers to the emptiness, blankness, or lack of decoration that sets off and surrounds something: Typescript looks best when at least an inch of margin is left on all four sides of the page. To this implication of space left unused can be added the notion of its being saved for an emergency: margin for error.
Rim and brim also refer to a circumscribing outline, in this case that of a circle. Rim refers most specifically to the open lip of a cylindrical or rounded shape: She tested the rim of the glass to see if it was nicked; on the rim of the volcano. Brim can refer to the same open lip, but is most often associated with a situation in which a container is completely filled: a teacup filled to the brim. This use extends to shapes that are not rounded: boxcars filled to the brim with grain. But brim has at least one use where it functions more like border or margin: the brim of a hat. See BOUNDARY, CIRCUMSCRIBE, PERIMETER.
Antonyms: center, interior.
These words pertain to the accomplishing of results. Effect can refer to the successful accomplishment of an intended action: The pilot effected a take-off despite the bomb-pocked runway. As in this example, the point of this use is often the overcoming of difficulty or a previous uncertainty as to outcome. The word can also indicate putting into practice a previously formulated goal: We effected the plan with a minimum of fuss. No sense of difficulty or uncertainty need be implied here. When effect applies, however, to the formulating of a plan, goal, or solution, rather than to putting one into action, the word takes on a different set of overtones: a board of mediators to effect a compromise in the newspaper strike. While initial resistance is implied, the goal reached is not necessarily known at the outset, but is arrived at through experiment, innovation, and improvisation. Also, the word sometimes suggests a rough-and-ready or expedient result, if not a jerry built one: ready to effect a solution to the problem by any means available.
By contrast, the desired objective implied by realize is always seen in advance, at least in the sense pertinent here: to realize a long-standing dream. The stress of the word, in fact, is on making actual or real something that has previously existed only as a plan or desire. Produce can also emphasize visible or actual results, but can apply to intentional or unintentional as well as to both good or bad results: a plan that produced concrete improvements in its first year of operation; proposals that produced fiery outbursts on the floor of the Senate. At its most literal, the word can apply to the bearing of fruit or the creation of something: countries that produced bumper crops while the famine raged; factories that produce war materiel. At its most neutral, the word merely assigns actions or results to the factors or agents that brought them
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about: Penicillin can produce an extreme allergic reaction in some people.
Cause is most closely related to this last sense of produce, stressing the relationship between a result and the factors responsible for it. [A stroke can cause permanent paralysis; Continual conflict among citystates caused the eventual decline of Greek civilization.] On this neutral level, the word points to the dispassionate or scientific tracing of a train of causality, often from the philosophical viewpoint of determinism. More informally, the word can apply to the laying of blame: parents who cause their children to grow up warped and apathetic. But a stress on inadvertence rather than on blame can be the point of the word in this use: He had unwittingly caused the accident by misreading a road sign. See create, decide, perform, reach.
Antonyms: destroy, deter , hinder, prevent, stop.
These words pertain to the physical or mental application that is devoted to achieving a result. At its mildest, effort can be used in reference to measuring the amount of application a given task requires. [How much effort will it take to get the requisitions out on time?; It only takes a little effort to keep your shoes shined.] With a slight increase in force, it can stress a more than ordinary attentiveness or thoughtfulness: students who make an effort to catch their own spelling errors; She decided to make a special effort to please him. When the word points specifically to a great outlay of energy, a challenging, difficult, or unpleasant task is implied: a real effort to win the race; a crisis that will require all our will and effort to survive; What an effort it took to endure the blabbering old busybody without insulting her.
Exertion more readily suggests a considerable or exhausting outlay of effort : He stood gasping with exertion after reaching the summit of the hill; the mental exertion it took to make the accounts balance. Unqualified, the word is more likely to apply to physical effort, but not always: Students on probation are expected to show greater exertion in their studies. Pains and trouble would also seem to stress outlay of effort in the face of difficulty or resistance, but both words are used idiomatically to indicate, instead, thoughtfulness or carefulness without necessarily suggesting great exertion. [She took whatever pains necessary to put her guests at ease; He’d be a good worker if he’d only take the trouble to get to work on time.] Trouble in particular can be used ironically to suggest a small effort, whereas pains can as easily be used for exacting effort: taking great pains with every detail of the program.
Struggle is the one word here that almost exclusively points to extreme efforts, those called up not only by the difficulty of the task or the external resistance to its achievement but by the determination, will, or zeal of the actor as well: his heroic struggle to overcome all obstacles in a situation where it would have been a struggle merely to stay alive. When qualified, however, the word need not always be so positive or approving: a feeble struggle to extricate himself; a hopeless struggle to escape his just punishment. See labor.
Antonyms: ease , facility , rest , sloth.
effort
exertion
pains
struggle
trouble
These words refer to aggressive rudeness born of crude vulgarity or unashamed egotism. Effrontery indicates an insult to good manners by someone who is pushy or conceited: the effrontery to ask the woman how she felt when she first got word of the accident; the effrontery to ask the distinguished guests if they had read his book. As in these examples, the
effrontery
churlishness
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