Adopting new words

my new shelf of words (wish I’d bought the thesaurus in hardcover) Although I’m looking up more words than ever, I don’t find myself adopting many of those new words for my own use. (This realization is part of why I want to revamp my vocabulary page — I’m hoping that having a list I can look through easily might help me pick up some of them.) Feeling comfortable with the meaning of words A fair number of these words were ones I was already familiar with but wasn’t confident about — perhaps an author used it in a way that surprised me, or when I tried to define it out loud I trailed off in uncertainty. Some words I’m retrospectively surprised I needed to look up because I now feel quite comfortable using: banal, bricolage. Others, I still remember the meaning a little wrong: laconic, sanguine, picayune. For new-to-me words, I’m good on kayfabe and anhedonia, I think I have a grip on tautology, but I still have to look up synecdoche every time I encounter it. Grasping the essence of a…