Castaway vs. outcast Castaway is a person whose ship was wrec | Bookworm's study📚

Castaway vs. outcast

Castaway is a person whose ship was wrecked (=severely damaged) at sea and who ended up in an isolated place such as an uninhabited island. Robinson Crusoe was a famous castaway.

Outcast, on the other hand, is a person rejected and avoided by society, typically leading a lowly life.

"After all, there might be some queer and perhaps hereditarily misshapen outcasts in those shunned hills, even though no such race of star-born monsters as folklore claimed."

The subtle point here is that both castaway and outcast can be used to talk about a person or people excluded from society. E.g.,

These homeless people are society's castaways.

Ravel vs. revel

Ravel means to untangle something such as a knot or seam if it's used literally; or to clarify if used figuratively. For instance,

Davy finished raveling out his fishing net.

If you revel in something, it means that you take great delight in it.

Billy said his was reveling in his newfound fame.

Mishappen vs. misshapen

Mishappen (pronounced mis- HAP(E)N) breaks down to prefix mis-, which means "wrong", "badly" and the word happen. If something mishappens, it happens through misfortune and causes grief. The word mishappen is considered obsolete nowadays and its use is primarily limited to works of literature and poetry.

"...The heavy hap, which on them is alight,
Afraid, least to themselves the like mishappen might."

Misshapen (pronounced mis- SHAY- pn) consists of the prefix mis-, the word shape and suffix -en, which is sometimes attached to a noun or verb to make a participle-like adjective. If something is misshapen it has a bad, ugly, deformed shape.

The man had unnaturally long hands and a misshapen complexion.

It is easy to remember the difference, if you memorize that the former word has two consecutive (=coming one after another) P's, while the latter has two S's in it.

#vocabulary

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