The verbs explore and scrutinize both mean “to examine,” but scrutinize implies doing so with a more critical eye. To scrutinize something is to inspect it methodically with very close attention to detail. Items that are commonly scrutinized, such as budgets, data, and applications, tend to be complex and consequential. Similarly, people seeking positions of rank and consequence, such as candidates for political office, may be subjected to scrutiny.

The verbs provide and furnish both mean to make something available, but provide is the more general and far more prevalent term. Furnish suggests equipping someone (or a group of people) with needed or useful items or information for a specific task or purpose. Where furnish very notably diverges from provide is in its ability to pull a room together; furnish in this sense means “to supply (a house or room) with necessary furniture, carpets, appliances, etc.”

The nouns development and advancement both deal with change. But advancement implies great forward progression, the kind that we might associate with significant leaps in research or understanding. This term is also widely used to talk about active furtherance of something, such as a cause, belief, or undertaking. For instance, an organization might be focused on the advancement of human rights or the advancement of democratic values. Advancement may also be used to refer to promotion in rank or standing, the kind of upward movement an employee might strive for at a workplace.