The adjective eager suggests desire and enthusiasm tinged with impatience. Keen carries a sense of zest and active, alert desire—one might even call it sharpness. The idea of sharpness slices through all uses of the word keen. A keen razor is a finely sharpened blade. Keen satire is sharp and biting, and a keen mind is one of great acumen or incisiveness. As a synonym for eager, the sharpness of keen turns up as a pointed enthusiasm. To say that you’re not keen on something is an understated way to say that you don’t look forward to that thing, or that you have no enthusiasm for it whatsoever.

Something that is obvious is easily seen or recognized. Something that is conspicuous is so glaringly apparent, it is hard to ignore. This term skews negative in usage, describing things that attract attention for the wrong reasons. A conspicuous absence of information, for instance, is a lack or deficiency of material that was needed or expected. Conspicuous consumption is the public enjoyment of possessions that are known to be costly so that one’s ability to pay for such things is flaunted.

Today’s the day! That is, it’s the perfect day for clarifying the difference between choose and elect! To choose something is to select it from a number of possibilities. This is a very common and general verb that is unlikely to call to mind any specific situation or action. The verb elect, on the other hand, suggests the formal action of voting someone into office. Elect does have more general senses referring to picking something out (a first-year college student might elect one class over another to satisfy a requirement), but as a member of the civically inclined word family including electoral and election, the primary meaning elect calls to mind relates to governmental processes.

We won’t leave you guessing about today’s word: the verb conjecture means “to conclude or suppose from grounds or evidence insufficient to ensure reliability.” If you guess what’s going to happen, you may be risking an opinion on something about which you know nothing or very little. If you conjecture an outcome, you are drawing conclusions based on available information, with the understanding that the information is partial. While neither of these terms deals in certainty, the latter suggests a more reasoned approach to determining what's probable.

The adjective audacious takes boldness to the extreme—and sometimes that’s a good thing. When used to describe an idea, goal, or plan, audacious usually suggests inventiveness and originality. But sometimes audacious is used to suggest brazen insolence and reckless defiance of convention, property, or law. An audacious lie, for instance, is an egregious and insidious falsehood delivered without shame.

Trick or treat—today's synonym is pretty sweet! The noun treat is used to refer to anything that affords particular pleasure or enjoyment. On Halloween, treat, of course, means candy! After accumulating a sufficient amount of treats, a pint-sized caped crusader or ferocious jungle cat might spend some time admiring their goodies. The word goody (also spelled goodie) is almost always used in the plural to refer to things especially tasty or pleasing. Something that stands the test of time, as classic song or TV episode, might be called an oldie but a goodie, and a bag of gifts given to guests at an event or party is a goody (or goodie) bag.

An avocation is something a person does in addition to a principal occupation, especially for pleasure. In its earliest uses, avocation referred to a calling away or diversion, as from a more important or serious task, function, or duty. The suggestion of being called away persists in modern usage. A person’s vocation (“occupation or profession”) might be accounting, but they may feel called to paint. Should they do so in their free time, painting would be their avocation.