Connotative words: meaning and 45 positive and negative examples

Connotation is the feeling or association a word carries beyond its literal, dictionary meaning. A word's connotative meaning is that extra charge. “Thrifty,” “frugal” and “stingy” all describe someone who doesn't spend much, but the first praises them, the second describes them and the third insults them. The literal meaning the three share is the denotation.

Writers choose by connotation all the time, usually without noticing. Doing it on purpose is how you set the tone of a scene, make a reader trust or distrust a character, or keep a report neutral. The 45 word sets below are grouped by the choice you're making, from describing a person to breaking bad news, and each one works as a scale you can move along.

How connotation works

“Snake” denotes a legless reptile. It connotes danger and betrayal, which is why “a snake in the grass” needs no explaining. Two words can share a denotation and differ completely in connotation, and that is where the choices in writing live. “The committee discussed the proposal” and “the committee argued over the proposal” report the same meeting. One sounds orderly, the other heated.

Positive, negative and neutral connotation

Most words lean one way or the other. A word with a positive connotation makes the reader approve; a word with a negative connotation makes them disapprove; a neutral word tries to do neither. The sets below are close enough in meaning to swap in a sentence, and they're grouped by the decision in front of you. Where context can flip a word, the note under the table says so.

Describing a person

The choice writers face most: what to call a trait. Each row is one habit, seen fondly, flatly or with disapproval.

Describing places, things and food

For settings, products and anything a character owns or eats.

Naming a group

A crowd can be welcomed, counted or feared before anyone in it does anything.

Choosing a verb

Verbs carry a judgment about how something was done. Swap one and the action stays while the attitude changes.

Breaking bad news

Here the choice is how hard a fact should land.

Two cautions about any list like this. The middle column is only relatively neutral, and the gentle end isn't always the polite choice. Euphemisms such as “passed away” and “let go” soften a fact, and readers may notice when the softening is doing work the facts should do.

How connotation sets tone

Connotation does much of the work of tone. You don't make a passage sinister by announcing that it is sinister. You choose words whose associations add up. The three versions below report the same facts.

If you want the words for the tone itself, such as wistful, wry or foreboding, see the tone words list. For precise words to describe people and places, see the descriptive words list.

Connotation in fiction

In fiction, connotation tells the reader as much about the speaker as about the thing described. A character who calls her neighbor “frugal” likes him. One who calls him “stingy” doesn't. A narrator who describes a city as “teeming” and another who calls it “swarming” are telling you how they feel about crowds, which is why word choice is one of the main tools of point of view.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell turned the idea into a joke on the BBC radio program The Brains Trust in 1948, conjugating one trait three ways: “I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool.” The trait never changes. Only the speaker's distance from it does. That makes a dependable device for characterization: let one character describe another, and the reader learns about both.

Connotation in advertising and news

Advertising is connotation applied for profit. Car dealers sell “pre-owned” vehicles because “used” sounds tired. Candy makers sell “fun-size” bars because “small” sounds like less. Property listings have a whole dialect: “cozy” often means small, “charming” often means old, and “up-and-coming” often means not there yet. None of these words is false. Each picks the most flattering point on the scale.

News writing tries to do the opposite, and the place it shows most is attribution. “Said” is the neutral default. Many alternatives add a judgment the reporter may not intend:

When connotations shift

Connotation isn't fixed. It drifts over centuries, differs between countries and flips with context.

• Over time. “Nice” comes from Latin nescius, “ignorant,” and meant foolish in English from the late 1200s; the “pleasant” sense arrived in the 1700s. “Silly” began as Old English for “happy” or “blessed” and slid through “innocent” and “pitiable” to “foolish” by the 1570s. “Egregious” meant “distinguished,” literally rising above the flock, until an ironic use in the late 1500s made it an insult. “Awful” meant “inspiring awe” around 1300 and “very bad” by the early 1800s.
• By place. “Homely” means plain or unattractive in American English and warm and comfortable in British English. In Britain a “scheme” is often just an official plan, as in a pension scheme. In American English the word usually hints at a dishonest one.
• By context. “Cheap” is good news for a flight and bad news for a gift. “Aggressive” is praise for a growth plan and a warning about a person. In slang, “sick” can mean excellent.

Before you choose a word for a reader you don't know, think about where they read it. A word that is warm in one country or one decade can be cold in another, and old books are full of words that have changed temperature since they were written.

Revise a paragraph by connotation

1. Decide what the reader should feel

   Trust, unease, amusement, sympathy. Write it at the top of the draft. Connotation can only push in a direction once you know which one.

2. Mark the loaded words

   Go through the paragraph and underline adjectives, verbs and the names you use for people. These carry most of the charge. Function words like “the” and “of” carry almost none. On a long scene, ask the Strokes Assistant to list the words that tilt the reader for or against a character, then compare its list with your own marks.

3. Move each word along its scale

   For every marked word, ask whether a neighbor on the scale fits the effect better: “persistent” or “stubborn,” “walked” or “trudged.” Change only the words that need it.

4. Check for mixed signals

   One stray word can undercut a paragraph. A warm description with a single “smirked” in it reads as sarcasm, which may be what you want, or may not.

5. Read it as the person described

   Connotation can spin as easily as it describes. If the subject would read the paragraph and recognize themselves, you have probably been fair. If they would feel ambushed by words that are technically true, decide whether that is what you intend.

Practice: spot the connotation

For each word in quotation marks, decide whether it is positive, neutral or negative, then find a word for the opposite end of its scale.

1. The apartment is “compact.”
2. He was a “frugal” host.
3. She “smirked” at the result.
4. The council “admitted” the bridge would open late.
5. A “seasoned” negotiator.
6. The tour guide was “long-winded.”

Answers. 1 is mildly positive (the negative end is “cramped”). 2 is neutral (“thrifty” on one side, “stingy” on the other). 3 is negative (“beamed”). 4 is negative, because “admitted” implies fault; the neutral choice is “said.” 5 is positive (“jaded”). 6 is negative (“thorough” or “eloquent,” depending on what you want to praise).