italki - Hi! Is it really wrong to use "flourished"? I looked it up in the dictionary and found the same expl

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Shana

Hi! Is it really wrong to use "flourished"? I looked it up in the dictionary and found the same explanations for both "thrived" and "flourished " - they seem to be synonyms in this case. I hope to confirm whether my understanding of the dictionary is incorrect.🙏 "The timber rattlesnake is now on the endangered species list, and is extinct in two eastern states in which it once __thrived__."

2025년 3월 8일 오전 2:45

답변 · 7

They are indeed synonyms. I would say that there is a slight difference due to the fact that "flourish" and "flower" share the same (French) root. When I see the word "flourish" I tend to think metaphorically in terms of a garden. For that reason the word works very well to describe living things that are doing very well. "Thrive" can also be used for that purpose, but it doesn't have that "flower" feeling. For this reason, while it might sound good to say that a new business is "thriving", it sounds less good (to my ears, at least) to say that a business is flourishing. Businesses just don't seem very flower-like to me, unless of course they are flower businesses. If the local flower store were doing well, I would not hesitate to say that it was flourishing.

2025년 3월 8일 오후 10:29