Pursue words actively and become alert to words that you simply overlooked in the past. Carry this paper or cardboard with you always. In fact, you might well discover that the words you've written down are rather common. What's happening is not that, all of a sudden, people are using words you never saw before, but that you are now reading and using words that you had previously ignored. Using Every Resource Most bookstores carry books on building a more powerful vocabulary, some of them with zany names such as Thirty Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary .
Newspapers often carry brief daily articles that explore the meanings of words and phrases.
These articles often emphasize peculiar words that won't find themselves into your working vocabulary, but they can still be fun. Often you'll find that learning one new word leads to other new words, little constellations of meaning that keep your brain cells active and hungry for more. Make reading these articles one of your daily habits, an addiction, even. See how many people you can fool with your fake definitions. A thesaurus is like a dictionary except that it groups words within constellations of meaning.