Word of the Week

wowWith its 120th word, Word of the Week has now come to an end. We hope you enjoyed this free feature and that it has given you an insight into the thinking and research behind the English Vocabulary Profile.

All 120 are still available to read in our archive, below. Each Word of the Week in the archive is followed by a link to the full entry for that word on the English Vocabulary Profile. To view the entries, you will need to subscribe to the EVP: to subscribe for free click here.

Word of the week: door

When is a door not a door? The answer to the classic joke is: when it’s ajar! But take a look at the entry for this word, taken from the new English Vocabulary Profile Preview version for letters DJK, which covers all six levels of the CEFR. Although the word door is known at A1 level, the idiom behind closed doors, meaning ‘in private’, is given C2. Even then, it is unlikely that many learners at that level would actually use it themselves – the learner example from a Russian speaker shows true mastery of the language. However, behind closed doors is a frequent idiom in today’s English, and one that seems useful for high-level learners to at least be aware of. Decisions on the inclusion of idioms have been made on the basis of current corpus frequency and this idiom features in both the Cambridge International Corpus and the Cambridge Learner Corpus. Incidentally, it is possible to search for other idioms using the drop-down category menu within Advanced Search.
 
To view the full entry for door on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here.

Word of the week: quiet

The entry for the word quiet includes three meanings for the adjective, two of which are at A2 and one at B1, while the noun is listed at B2. In our resource, it is possible to click on any word contained in an entry to find out what CEFR level that word is given. So for example in the A2 senses NOT NOISY and NOT BUSY, you will be able to click on the highlighted collocates keep or peaceful to find out their own CEFR level. This is partly why we have attempted to keep the vocabulary used in the dictionary examples within B2 level. When the C1 and C2 levels are added, their dictionary examples will contain words at the higher levels and some words may occur in dictionary examples that are not included in the English Vocabulary Profile (formerly known as the English Profile Wordlists). If this is the case, clicking on the word will take you to a Cambridge Dictionaries Online entry.
 
To view the full entry for quiet on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here.

Word of the week: view

The noun view has a number of senses. Interestingly, learners appear to meet the meaning THINGS YOU CAN SEE, as in the learner example the view from the window of my room, earlier than the meaning OPINION, which is the most frequent sense of the word for first language speakers, as in We have different views on education. That meaning is given B1, while the meaning ABILITY TO SEE and the phrase in view of (something) are listed at B2. This phrase is appropriate to B2 and beyond, given its formal register. Searching for the word view in our resource will also display core results for the entry point of view. Here, there are two meanings, OPINION and WAY OF THINKING, both at B2.
 
To view the full entry for view on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here

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