Many people create lists of synonyms for the word 'said,' but what about the word 'look'? Here are some synonyms that I enjoy using in my writing, along with their meanings for your reference. While all these words relate to 'look,' they each carry distinct meanings and nuances, so I thought it would be helpful to provide meanings for each one.
Gaze - To look steadily and intently, especially in admiration or thought.
Glance - A brief or hurried look.
Peek - A quick and typically secretive look.
Peer - To look with difficulty or concentration.
Scan - To look over quickly but thoroughly.
Observe - To watch carefully and attentively.
Inspect - To look at closely in order to assess condition or quality.
Stare - To look fixedly or vacantly at someone or something.
Glimpse - To see or perceive briefly or partially.
Eye - To look or stare at intently.
Peruse - To read or examine something with great care.
Scrutinize - To examine or inspect closely and thoroughly.
Behold - To see or observe a thing or person, especially a remarkable one.
Witness - To see something happen, typically a significant event.
Spot - To see, notice, or recognize someone or something.
Contemplate - To look thoughtfully for a long time at.
Sight - To suddenly or unexpectedly see something or someone.
Ogle - To stare at in a lecherous manner.
Leer - To look or gaze in an unpleasant, malicious way.
Gawk - To stare openly and stupidly.
Gape - To stare with one's mouth open wide, in amazement.
Squint - To look with eyes partially closed.
Regard - To consider or think of in a specified way.
Admire - To regard with pleasure, wonder, and approval.
Skim - To look through quickly to gain superficial knowledge.
Reconnoiter - To make a military observation of a region.
Flick - To look or move the eyes quickly.
Rake - To look through something rapidly and unsystematically.
Glare - To look angrily or fiercely.
Peep - To look quickly and secretly through an opening.
Focus - To concentrate one's visual effort on.
Discover - To find or realize something not clear before.
Spot-check - To examine something briefly or at random.
Devour - To look over with eager enthusiasm.
Examine - To inspect in detail to determine condition.
Feast one's eyes - To look at something with great enjoyment.
Catch sight of - To suddenly or unexpectedly see.
Clap eyes on - To suddenly see someone or something.
Set eyes on - To look at, especially for the first time.
Take a dekko - Colloquial for taking a look.
Leer at - To look or gaze in a suggestive manner.
Rubberneck - To stare at something in a foolish way.
Make out - To manage to see or read with difficulty.
Lay eyes on - To see or look at.
Pore over - To look at or read something intently.
Ogle at - To look at in a lecherous or predatory way.
Pry - To look or inquire into something in a determined manner.
Dart - To look quickly or furtively.
Drink in - To look at with great enjoyment or fascination.
Bask in - To look at or enjoy something for a period of time.
The words they're afraid of.
(Read on our blog.)
The recently appointed Department of Defense head Pete Hegseth (formerly Fox News pundit, perpetually soused creepy uncle, and current group chat leaker of classified intel) banned images of the Enola Gay from the Pentagon’s website for the offense of “DEI” language. In keeping with the far right’s stated war on anything vaguely resembling diversity, equity and inclusion, even historical photos are up for cancellation. When a literal weapon of mass destruction is censored for being a bit fruity under the Trump administration’s war against inconvenient truths, what exactly is left untouched?
This is clown show stuff, but the stakes are far from funny. While some might be hesitant to compare the current administration to the very worst history has to offer, we can at least all agree that they are dyed-in-the-wool grammar Nazis. Policing language has been the objective of the MAGA culture war long before Project 2025’s debut—the wave of book bans orchestrated by astroturf movements like Moms for Liberty, and Florida’s 2022 Don’t Say Gay bill have already had a profound effect in the arena of free speech and freedom of expression (despite the far right’s long tradition of doublespeak performative free-speech martyrdom to the contrary). Don’t Say Gay ostensibly targeted K-3 education, but LGBT+ content at all levels of education (and beyond) was either quietly censored or entirely preempted in practice. The results were not just a war on so-called ideology, or words alone—but on reality and essential freedoms.
Now, words as innocuous and important as racism, climate change, hate speech, prejudice, mental health, and inequality are targeted as subversive. Entire concepts are being vanished from government institutions, scrubbed not only from descriptions but from metadata, search indexes, and archival frameworks.
If you don’t name a thing, does it exist?
These words are as numerous as they are generic: women, race, Black, immigrants, multicultural, gender, injustice. But what is painfully unserious is also particularly dangerous in its real-world consequences. The process of controlling words is a well-worn authoritarian tendency. Fifty-two universities are now under investigation as part of the President's effort to curb “woke” research and thought crimes. Institutions are being coerced to comply with a nebulous set of ideological demands, or face budgetary annihilation. That means cutting funding for entire departments, slashing financial aid, defunding scientific grants, and pressuring faculty to self-censor.
The possibilities for censorship extend far and wide—interfering, by extension, in everything from reproductive healthcare programs, to libraries and museums. The Trump administration’s proposed budget slashing all federal funding for libraries, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will effectively gut an infrastructure that supports over 100,000 libraries and museums across the country—community centers, educational lifelines, internet access points, and archives of marginalized histories (starting with the Smithsonian Institution).
When you erase access, you erase participation. And when you erase participation, you erase people, and the means by which future generations might even learn they existed. A culture that cannot remember is a culture that cannot resist.
The erasure is, yet again, unsurprisingly targeted at minorities and LGBT+ people. The National Parks Service quietly revised the Stonewall Monument’s website to remove references to transgender people—a fundamental part of the original protests. Not an oversight, not a mistake, but a deliberate excision—one point in a wider plan of erasure depicted in stark detail in Project 2025, a blueprint to dismantle civil rights, defund LGBT+-related healthcare, and rewrite history from the ground up.
Dehumanization by deletion—welcome to the reactionary resurgence of doubleplusungood governance. In Trumpland, words are weapons—but not in the way they intend. Their fear of language betrays its power; that’s why they’re trying so hard to police it.
Words hurt them.
Hurt them back.
- the Ellipsus Team
Yeeeeeeesssssssss
Hand-Holding Dialogue
Hand-Holding
Touching
Hugs
Hugging Dialogue
Touch Starved Prompts
Touches Ask Games
Super soft intimacy
Casual Affections
Seeking out physical affection
Romantic, non-sexual intimacy prompts
Kisses
First Kisses
First Kiss Prompts
Accidental Kisses
Places for kissing
Angsty Kisses
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I remember learning about this! It was actually a really cool concept. A little confusing? Yes. Am I ever going to use it? I did twice and never again after that.
But this.
Yes.
Happy Pride Month to everyone who gets this joke, laughed at it, or isn’t a homophobic or transphobic etc asshole.
Happy Pride Everyone.
Stay Gay.
Different Ways to Describe Eye Colors
↳ a masterpost for writing prompts that describe eye colors
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Natural Eye Colors:
Brown Eyes
Blue Eyes
Green Eyes
Hazel Eyes
Hazel Green Eyes
Gray Eyes
Black Eyes
Heterochromia Eyes
Unnatural Eye Colors:
White Eyes
White/Silver Eyes pt 2
Red Eyes
Reddish-Brown Eyes
Pink/Magenta Eyes
Gold/Yellow Eyes
Unusual Eyes (Silver, White, Purple, Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow)
Seasonal Eyes
Persephone, I’m sorry I forgot to wear the bracelets out, but I took some pretty photos of flowers to make it up to you.
I hope you like them 🙏🏻
Flowers may not last forever, but the impact you and they have on me does.
Ways I Show a Character is In Love But Doesn't Know It Yet...
This one’s for the emotional masochists writing the slowest of burns, where your readers are screaming “just kiss already!” by chapter twenty... I Love and Hate you... ♥
They compare everyone else to the person… and everyone else comes up short. Even when they’re not consciously doing it. No one’s laugh is as warm. No one’s eyes crinkle that way.
They remember the weirdest little things about them. Birthdays? Whatever. But that time they snorted laughing at a dumb joke? Locked and loaded.
They feel weirdly guilty when flirting with someone else. Like they’re cheating… except they’re not even dating. Or are they? Or—ugh, feelings are the worst.
They notice every damn detail when the other person isn’t around. "They’d like this song." "This smells like their shampoo." "I wonder what they'd say about this weird squirrel."
They use weird, overly specific compliments. Not “You look good,” but “That color makes your eyes look like a storm in a novel I’d cry over.”
They get weirdly intense about that person being hurt or in danger. Like, irrationally intense. "He’s just a friend," they say while planning to murder anyone who makes them cry.
They feel safer around them than anyone else, and it freaks them out. Like: “I’m always on guard. Except with you. That’s... suspicious.”
Something I made while dealing with my own stuff and hoping drawing this would pick me up somehow. Maybe it worked.
FT my cat. His name is Mischief
wikipedia no longer being anywhere near the top of search results when looking up anything feels eviscerating
Persephone with cuteness agression.
Hello! Welcome to my silly little corner of the internet.
233 posts