Words about Activities: OneLook Thesaurus and Reverse Dictionary

Enter a word, phrase, description, or pattern above to find synonyms, related words, and more.

Concept clusters in the subject Activities (Top)

Abandonment Abduction Achieving or striving Acquisition or assumption Action or execution Action or initiative Active Defense or Resistance Adjacency or bordering Advancement or improvement Aggression or competition Agitation or causing trouble Annoying or irritating someone Annoying or upsetting someone Applying pressure Arrival or coming Arrival or coming (2) Assertiveness or confrontation Assistance or help Attraction or fondness Avoidance Avoidance or escape Back or rear Backlog Battle or conflict Beat or beating Beating Someone Up Behind or at the rear Behind schedule Besiege Biting or teeth Blame or accusation Body positions or postures Bouncing back Boundaries or limits Boxing and mixed martial arts Boxing or fighting Burdened Calling Cancellation or nullification Capturing or seizing Car collisions Carjacking Carrying or Moving Objects Carrying or supporting Casting Catty-corner or kitty-corner Causing disruption or conflict Causing trouble or disruption Champion Change or transition Changing gears while driving Charging an electric vehicle Chasing Circular motion Circularity or going around Circumlocution Clearance Closeness or proximity Closing or Confinement Coercion or Persuasion Collision Commercial success or failure Competing or rivalry Competition Competitive sports Confinement or imprisonment Confinement or restriction Conflict Conformity or compliance Confrontation or conflict Consequence or result Consequences of one's actions Construction or building Contracting Control or influence Conversation or dialogue Cooperation or harmony Correcting or Fixing Covering or layering Creep or creeping Crime and law enforcement Cutting or dividing something Cutting or separating Cutting or severing Cutting or slicing (4) Deception or misleading Declaring or proclaiming Decline or decrease Decreasing or lowering Delay or stoppage Demoting Departing or fleeing Departure Departure (2) Deposing Descending or Lowering Destruction or breaking Deterioration Different types Diminishing (2) Disappearance or elimination Disenfranchisement Disorder or confusion Dispatch or sending away Displaying Distribution or giving out Diversion Domestication Down or downward movement Down or lowering Dying or passing away Effort and determination Effort or hard work Embrace or encompassing Enclosing or confinement Ending a life or causing death English Idioms and Phrases Entering or intrusion Entry or access Equipment and furnishing Eradication or deletion Escaping Evading Events occurring or unfolding Events or occurrences Exceeding limits Exceeding or surpassing Exceeding or surpassing (2) Excess or exceeding limits Excision Exclusion or removal Exerting power or influence Expediting Experimentation or evaluation Failure or disaster Failure or making a mistake Falling Fiasco Filling a void or empty space Finality or conclusion Flexibility or bending Flip Flipping Flirting or dating Following rules or norms Forms of announcement Forward or front Free time or relaxation Freedom Freedom or release Fulfillment processes Game or tournament Geordie dialect Getting Rid Of or Distributing Getting fired or dismissal Giving or Surrendering Going downward or decreasing Going or Movement Goofing off Greed and exploitation Greeting or saluting Hand actions or gestures Hand gestures or interactions Handling or Managing Happening or occurrence Holding tightly or grasping Illicit payments Initiating or causing action Initiation Investment or clothing Job rotation within a company Journey or travel Journey or trip Jumping or hopping Keeping cool under pressure Kicking in various contexts Knocking out Knowledge or understanding Leadership or taking charge Leading or guiding Letting go or releasing Limitation or restriction Listening or paying attention Looking or observing Lying down or reclining Lying down or resting Making a U-turn Making a mistake or error (2) Making a mistake or messing up Making an effort or trying Meeting or gathering Messing up or causing disorder Military drills and formations Mobilization Mounting Movement in a circular path Movement or relocation Moving or directed backwards Moving or escaping subtly Moving or pushing slightly Moving quickly or urgently Neglect or disregard Notification or alert Obscuring or erasing Observation or viewing Obstruction Obstruction or hindrance Obtaining and providing Opening or Turning Off Openness or vulnerability Organizing (2) Outperforming Overcoming obstacles Overcrowded Overdoing it Overloading a system Overloading or excessive load Overturning Passing or moving through Perception or judgement Physical Violence Physical attack Physical greetings Placing or positioning Plate tectonics (2) Play Pointing Postponing or delaying action Posture Preparation or Configuration Presenting or Presentation Pressure or influence Problem-solving Professional wrestling moves Proposing Protrusion Providing or making available Provoking or annoying someone Pulling Back or Withdrawal Pulling or Drawing Pulling or drawing back Pursuit or chasing Raiding Range Rap music Reconnaissance Recovering Reducing Reducing or lowering something Reduction or lessening Rejection or dismissal Relaxation Release or liberation Relinquishing Relinquishing control Removal or elimination (4) Removal or expulsion Removal or expulsion (2) Removal or stripping away Removal or withdrawal Removing Clothing or Garments Repetition or Duplication Reserve Resting or lying down Retreat or cessation Returning or Going Back Revealing secrets Reversing or going back Reversing or undoing an action Reversing or undoing an action (2) Reverting Revisiting the basics Rotation or movement Roundness Running or Movement Sabre-rattling Saving or Preservation Sealing or Closure Searching or investigating Seeing or observing Seizing or apprehending Seizure or confiscation Selection Self-conduct Self-reliance Separation or Damage Separation or disconnection Separation or isolation Service Settling in Shooting Shuffling Silence or keeping quiet Silencing or quieting someone Simplifying Singing or song Sitting Sitting or being on a bench Sleep Snapping Sneaking Speaking or expressing oneself Sports Betting Starting a journey or project Starting an action or task Starting or beginning Staying poised under pressure Staying put Stimulating or Inciting Action Stirring or shaking Stockpiling Stopping or pausing Strait or restriction Strengthening Strengthening or enhancing Stretching Strike Strike or Surrender Submission or respect Success or achievement Superlative verbs Surrendering or relinquishing Synonyms (4) System failures Taking Taking a risk or chance Taking immediate action Taking time off from work Taming or domestication Tearing or ripping Testing or examination Theft or stealing Throwing Throwing Away Thrust Time management (2) Time-wasters Touch Touch or physical sensation Transparency Transportation (5) Truancy Truancy or Underperforming Understanding or comprehension Understanding or comprehension (2) Understanding or expertise Undoing or removing something Undoing or reversing an action Undoing or reversing an action (2) Undoing or unfastening Unexpected discovery Upward movement or progression Using hands or fists Vanishing or disappearing Verbosity Verbs Victory Victory or triumph Vigilance or attentiveness Vigilance or self-protection Violence or aggression Vulgarity Vulgarity or crude slang (2) Waking up or awakening Waking up or staying awake Wandering or losing one's way Wasteful spending Watching or monitoring Work or labor Wreck

This subject index is an experimental OneLook feature. We've grouped words and phrases into thousands of clusters based on a statistical analysis of how they are used in writing. Some of the words and concepts may be vulgar or offensive. The names of the clusters were written automatically and may not precisely describe every word within them.

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How do I use OneLook's thesaurus / reverse dictionary?

OneLook helps you find words for any type of writing. Similar to a traditional thesaurus, it find synonyms and antonyms, but it offers much greater depth and flexibility. Simply enter a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence to describe what you need. Press Enter or choose from the autocomplete suggestions to explore related words. You can sort, filter, and explore the words that come back in a variety of creative ways. Here's a video which goes over some of the basics.

What are some examples?

Task	Example searches
🔆 Find a word by describing it	barrel maker before the flood museum guide search for food urge to travel what a milliner makes tried twice for the same crime when cancer spreads through the body
🔆 Explore synonyms and related concepts	fancy baseball clouds twisty push industrial revolution
🔆 Get a list of words in some category ("type of...")	type of bird of prey type of soft cheese type of light bulb
🔆 Find more words similar to some examples (comma-separated list)	squishy,spongy,gooey bicycle,motorcycle,scooter ice cream,pie,cookies
🔆 Answer basic identification questions	capital of Vietnam longest river in the world original host of Jeopardy
🔆 Solve crossword puzzle clues, or find words if you only know some of the letters. (Use `pattern:description` syntax)	??lon:synthetic fabric s?nt?:christmas lch:fruit ??????:hit c*:board game

Exploring the results

Click on any result to see definitions and usage examples tailored to your search, as well as links to follow-up searches and additional usage information when available. OneLook knows about more than 2 million different words and expressions covering every topic under the sun. Try exploring a favorite topic for a while and you'll be surprised how much new stuff there is to learn!

Ordering the results

Your results will initially appear with the most closely related word shown first, the second-most closely shown second, and so on. You can re-order the results in a variety of different ways, including alphabetically, by length, by popularity, by modernness, by formality, and by other aspects of style. Click the box that says "Closest meaning first..." to see them all. (Here's a short video about sorting and filtering with OneLook Thesaurus.)

Filtering the results

You can refine your search by clicking on the "Advanced filters" button on the results page. This lets you narrow down your results to match a certain starting letter, number of letters, number of syllables, related concept, meter, vowel sound, or number of syllables. Read more details on filters if you're interested in how they work.

I'm only looking for synonyms! What's with all of these weird results?

For some kinds of searches only the first result or the first few results are truly synonyms or good substitutions for your search word. We highlight these results in yellow. Beyond that, the results are meant to inspire you to consider similar words and adjacent concepts. Not all of the results will make sense at first, but they're all connected with your search in some way. We'd rather give you too many options than too few. If you're unsure of a word, we urge you to click on it to check its definitions and usage examples before using it in your Oscars acceptance speech or honors thesis.

What are letter patterns?

If you know some letters in the word you're looking for, you can enter a pattern instead of, or in addition to, a description. Here are how patterns work:

The asterisk (*) matches any number of letters. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for any part of a word or phrase. For example, if you enter blueb* you'll get all the terms that start with "blueb"; if you enter *bird you'll get all the terms that end with "bird"; if you enter *lueb* you'll get all the terms that contain the sequence "lueb", and so forth. An asterisk can match zero letters, too.
The question mark (?) matches exactly one letter. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for a single letter or symbol. The query l?b?n?n, for example, will find the word "Lebanon".
The number-sign (#) matches any English consonant. For example, the query tra#t finds the word "tract" but not "trait".
The at-sign (@) matches any English vowel (including "y"). For example, the query abo@t finds the word "about" but not "abort".
NEW! The comma (,) lets you combine multiple patterns into one. For example, the query ?????,*y* finds 5-letter words that contain a "y" somewhere, such as "happy" and "rhyme".
NEW! Use double-slashes (//) before a group of letters to unscramble them (that is, find anagrams.) For example, the query //soulbeat will find "absolute" and "bales out", and re//teeprsn will find "represent" and "repenters". You can use another double-slash to end the group and put letters you're sure of to the right of it. For example, the query //blabrcs//e will find "scrabble". Question marks can signify unknown letters as usual; for example, //we??? returns 5-letter words that contain a W and an E, such as "water" and "awake".
NEW! A minus sign (-) followed by some letters at the end of a pattern means "exclude these letters". For example, the query sp???-ei finds 5-letter words that start with "sp" but do not contain an "e"or an "i", such as "spoon" and "spray".
NEW! A plus sign (+) followed by some letters at the end of a pattern means "restrict to these letters". For example, the query *+ban finds "banana".
On OneLook's main search or directly on OneLook Thesaurus, you can combine patterns and thesaurus lookups by putting a colon (:) after a pattern and then typing a description of the word, as in ??lon:synthetic fabric and the other examples above.

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Is this available in any language other than English?

The same interface is now available in Spanish at OneLook Tesauro as a beta version. More languages are coming!

How does it work?

We use a souped-up version of our own Datamuse API, which in turn uses several lingustic resources described in the "Data sources" section on that page. The definitions come from Wiktionary, Wikipedia, and WordNet. Here are some known problems with the current system.
Much gratitude to Gultchin et al for the algorithm behind the "Most funny-sounding" sort order.

Profanity and problematic word associations

If you're using this site with children, be forewarned you'll occasionally find profanity and other vulgar expressions. (The site aims to show you how words have been used in the language, including good ones and bad ones. Removing hurtful words would be a disservice to everyone!)

Some of the thesaurus results come from a statistical analysis of the words in a large collection of books written in the past two centuries. A handful of times we've found that this analysis can lead us to suggest word associations that reflect racist or harmful stereotypes present in this source material. If you see one of these, please know that we do not endorse what the word association might imply. In egregious cases we will remove it from the site if you report it to us via the feedback link below.

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