Hello, today I had an English exam and I used [STRIKE]a[/STRIKE] the phrase "vast vocabulary" which the teacher corrected to "extensive vocabulary". Are they not synonyms? Is it a mistake or are both options suitable? Thank you for your replies!
Welcome to the forum. :hi:
Please note my couple of corrections above. I agree with your teacher. However, it's difficult to explain why. You're partially right about "vast" and "extensive" being synonyms but only in certain contexts. Sometimes, an adjective only naturally collocates with some nouns and this is one of those situations. We refer to people having an extensive vocabulary, a huge vocabulary, a wide vocabulary, a large vocabulary, an impressive vocabulary, a small vocabulary (and other things) but, for a reason I can't quite put my finger on, we don't say they have a vast vocabulary, a mighty vocabulary, a mammoth vocabulary (and other things).
Note that I randomly picked some of the synonyms for "vast" listed at the top of
THIS page.
