✅ A rule is a regulation or principle that is designed to regulate behavior or actions (We only have three rules in this house).

✅ A guideline is a principle that governs or offers guidance regarding conduct or actions (Format your submissions according to our guidelines).

✅ Both of these terms refer to regulations and guiding principles.

✅ Rules are generally stricter and more inviolable than guidelines.

✅ Subtle describes things that are clever in a delicate way or that demonstrate skill or specific kinds of intelligence and knowledge (a subtle insult; subtle poetry).

✅ Sophisticated describes people who are no longer naive due to education and culture and things that reflect the tastes, attitudes, and behaviors of such people (a sophisticated novel; sophisticated cocktails).

✅ Both of these terms describe things that demonstrate or evoke worldly knowledge, education, and culture.

✅ Subtle emphasizes that the skill may be difficult to see or understand. Sophisticated emphasizes a sense of elevated culture.

✅ Relate means to tell or give an account of something (I related how I discovered my cat could do math).

✅ Recount means to give a detailed account of something, usually in chronological order (I recounted everything I did that day).

✅ Both of these words mean to explain or describe a sequence of events to an audience.

✅ Recount is more formal than relate and suggests a higher level of concrete detail and accuracy (Could you recount those events to the court?).