Different meaning of common words
What is this?
Some of the words have their American meaning in other languages too, but not as their primary meaning. Here's what they mean elsewhere (primarily) and what they mean in American English (primarily).
28-XI-2014 - 29-II-2024
go home
Expression
Meaning in the US
Meaning elsewhere
antique
older than 20-25 years, specially cars
From the times between ancient Egypt and Roman Empire.
government
the whole apparatus of state power, with ministers, agencies, law enforcement, social security and other programs, military apparatus etc.
the ministers, including the prime minister.
actual
real, in the matter of fact
contemporary, new, the buzz
accented
spoken with a foreign accent
stressed, emphasized...
spiral
mostly a helicoid, sometimes a real spiral
just a spiral
a propos
appropriate
and regarding the matter of
transit
public transportation
through traffic, what passes through a place is "in transit"
paragraph
lines of text delimited by a line break, some indentation at the beginning, and some spacing after the line break.
an article in the text of a law, usually numbered
primary
internal process of selecting a party candidate, consisting of campaign and elections
main, first, the most important
billion
1e9, i.e. thousand millions
1e12, i.e. million millions
ad lib, adlib
to improvise (speech, action on scene); it's a verb ("she pretty much adlibbed the whole address")
doesn't exist, it's "ad libitum" - "at will"
accented
has a diacritical on it (character)
stressed, emphasized
feud
a long dispute, often between families and spanning generations
land over which a feudal master reigns, his domain