To surpass someone or something is to go beyond it in amount, extent, or degree. A new product can surpass expectations if it does more than previously thought. Surpass can also mean to excel or to be superior to, as in, a student who surpasses his classmates in vocabulary knowledge or in sports trivia. If surpassing others in some way makes them look less outstanding or important by comparison, then the verb eclipse covers it. You may know the verb eclipse more for its use in astronomy to denote the blocking out of the light of the moon or sun, but its figurative meaning is relevant closer to home. For example, a basketball player can eclipse her rivals in free throw accuracy, meaning she has overshadowed them with her superior abilities. 

There’s nothing like a tasty treat! When that treat is tasty not because it is sweet, but because it has a rich flavor such as that associated with meat or roasted vegetables, it may be called savory. Savory means “pleasant or agreeable in taste or smell,” but has come to represent a particular taste profile in the culinary world. Of the five basic taste sensations, savory best aligns with umami, a word adopted from Japanese in the early 1960’s that describes a meaty or mushroom-like flavor featured in Asian cuisine. Savory can also refer to a pleasing or attractive person or thing, like a savory architecture book full of vivid photographs. Its antonym, unsavory, gives off a malodor, describing someone or something that is not wholesome, as in, “Her job as an undercover investigator involved interacting with some unsavory characters.”

A cheerful person is just that, full of cheer! Another word for being in good spirits and floating above life’s worries is buoyant. While buoyant describes the physical properties that allow an object to stay afloat, it also means “not easily depressed” or “cheerful.” Buoyant also can describe a resilient economy or the stock market when it is on a high trajectory. In general, something buoyant tends to rise, or has a lightness of spirit that keeps it bouncing along, you know, like a buoy.