Vocabulary 29 - Words that Express Emotions

From our experiences we can recognise emotions as separate ones, such as happiness, fear, anger and hurt. We are able to put emotions into categories of positive and negative.

Since emotions are not strictly compartmentalised to either this or that category we can have a graded range of emotions. I can feel strongly, moderately or lightly. Often it is difficult to distinguish between emotions and feelings. One way to distinguish is to remember that feelings are triggered by external stimuli and can include physical sensations in addition to thoughts that occur as a result of the state of our mind. However, emotions are sensations triggered by a state of mind and generally occur from internal thoughts. Another distinguishing factor is the fact that feelings can last as long as the stimuli lasts whereas emotions tend to stay much longer as they stem from the mind. Love, hate, joy, sorrow and fear are emotions that stay for longer times.

English has many words that describe feelings and emotions and it is good to put these words into our vocabulary bank. Take the quiz that follows and understand how feelings and emotions can be expressed with different words.