Academic Word of the Day

A daily examination of a particular academic (AWL) word and its usage in academic writing

This page examines particular academic words and their usage in academic writing.

For each word, it examines the meaning or meanings of that word and its collocations, connotations, other words in the same word families, possible synonyms, antonyms, and lexical phrases, and provides examples of its use in authentic texts which are cited and listed in the bibliography. Occasionally, where an example is taken from a text which is particularly rich in examples of the headword, the citation is also a link to the source article. There is also an indication of whether the word appears in an academic word list. These are:

AWL: The Academic Word List
NAWL: The New Academic Word List
AKL: The Academic Keyword List
OPAL: The Oxford Phrasal Academic Lexicon
NGSL: The New General Service List (a basic word list rather than an academic one)

In the example sentences the words of the day are highlighted in red. Other 'academic words' are highlighted in bold.
Where the example sentences contain 'academic' words, these are highlighted in bold, as in this paragraph. Only words from the Academic Word List (AWL), the New Academic Word List (NAWL) or some from the Academic Keyword List (AKL) are highlighted. This gives you an idea of how common and important these words are in these types of academic or technical texts.

If you need to find or highlight academic words in a text you can use the Academic Word Highlighter. This gives you a choice about which word list to use for highlighting.

The words of the day appear in order by date. They are also divided into sets of ten words, which are the ten words tested in each set of quizzes.

You can see all previous sets by going to the Previous Sets page.

You can see all previous Academic Word of the Day Quizzes by going to the Academic Word of the Day Quizzes page.

There are also occasional collocation quizzes to test recall of words in previous sets (mainly the previous 2 or 3 sets).

All the collocation quizzes are also available on the Academic Word of the Day Collocation Quizzes pages.

You can more collocates of words from various academic word lists by consulting the Collocation Dictionary.

Today's word is:

2026-02-27 27 compensationAWL: NOUN UNCOUNTABLE money or other benefits paid for damage or loss
Perhaps the most severe issue of all is the lack of fair compensation for sustainable cocoa production. (Odijie 2024) News publishers worldwide have long sought compensation from platforms such as Google and Meta for featuring their content. (Benghozi and Paris 2025) Decades have passed and yet the issue of financial compensation for the less than 3,000 remaining “survivors” of the tragedy has, in many instances, remained unresolved. (Madden 2015) The country’s 2022 Wildlife Conservation Act offers financial and material compensation for any eligible person negatively affected by human-wildlife conflict incidents. (Rutta 2023) Compensation payments are not calculated simply because something happened, such as the use of a drug. Compensation payments focus on the effects – injury and its consequences. (Madden 2015) Common collocates for this word:

compensation

financial
full
foreign
monetary
adequate
small
partial
substantial
additional
reasonable
extra
sufficient
fair
total
appropriate

Word Family: compensation (noun), compensate (verb)Synonyms: recompense, indemnity, settlement 27/02/2026 - Set 27Test your understanding of the words in set 27 with these quick quizzes: Quiz 27 Quiz 27B Quiz 27C
2026-02-26 27 coordinationAWL AKL OPAL NGSL: NOUN UNCOUNTABLE 1. organising people or groups so that they work well together; 2. the proper functioning of the parts of a system so the that system works as intended
These activities engage both the brain and body. Tai chi, for instance, requires focus, coordination and memorising sequences. (Smith and Singh 2025) Neurons continuously adjust their coordination, keeping the brain stable enough for deep thought, yet agile enough to respond to new challenges. (Munn 2024) For children, dance supports developmental maturity, attention span and memory. For adults, it can improve balance, flexibility, body composition and coordination. (Clifford, Bhriain, and O’Reilly 2025) Older adults often have chronic conditions such as arthritis, Parkinson’s disease or diabetes that can affect their mobility, coordination and overall stability. (Papa 2023) Balance training can help improve coordination and proprioception, which is the body’s ability to sense where it is in space. (Papa 2023) Common collocates for this word:

coordination

close
better
effective
international
regional
poor
national
overall
improved
muscular
central
proper
technical
global
physical

Word Family: coordination (noun), coordinate (verb)Synonyms: order, harmony, organization 26/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-25 27 assumptionAWL AKL OPAL NGSL: NOUN COUNTABLE something accepted as true without evidence
Their brains made quick assumptions based on imperfect knowledge. (Anderson-Sieg 2021) It’s a stereotype, but many of us have made the assumption that scientists are a bit rigid and less artistic than others. (Pearson 2016) A more recent study from the British Library challenged the assumption that acid does not influence film degradation from the beginning. (Ahmad 2020) AI is trained by data, and the absence of older adults could reproduce or even amplify the above ageist assumptions in its output. (Chu et al. 2022) Lots of compelling and exciting new findings about adult development point to the importance of rethinking previous theories, assumptions and stereotypes about the course of adult life. (Arnett 2022) Common collocates for this word:

assumption

implicit
reasonable
underlying
false
basic
common
tacit
fundamental
general
unspoken
natural
simplifying
widespread
mistaken
important

Word Family: assumption (noun), assume (verb)Synonyms: supposition, presumption, premise
Lexical phrases: on the assumption that
25/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-24 27 estimateAWL AKL NGSL: VERB TRANSITIVE to guess (usually with evidence to support the guess)
Scientists estimate that there are over 4,000 cockroach species. (Lovett 2022) Scientists can use the results of these experiments to estimate how milder conditions that are more similar to the environment found in archives will affect the film. (Ahmad 2020) Both meteorites contain only trace amounts of plagioclase, in contrast to Mercury’s surface, which is estimated to contain over 37%. (Rider-Stokes 2025) To understand how reliable, accurate, and precise our findings are likely to be, think of the first models that estimated how sensitive the climate is to human influence back in the 1970s. (Velis and Cook 2020) Eratosthenes used this to estimate the Earth’s circumference as approximately 40,000 km. (Dorrian and Whittaker 2020) Common collocates for this word:

estimate

population
values
costs
numbers
sales
variability
velocity
percentage
intelligence
revenue
risk
size
value
age
speeds

Word Family: estimate (verb), estimate (noun), estimation (noun)Synonyms: guess, speculate, conjecture 24/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-23 27 cultureAWL AKL OPAL NGSL: NOUN COUNTABLE the customs, beliefs and values of a particular group
In every culture where most people can hear, people talk with spoken language. (Futrell n.d.) While sleep is a universal human experience, the way we do so has varied greatly across cultures, social classes and even time periods. (Alter 2024) The result is worth it: every new word or phrase we learn brings us closer to other cultures and enriches our lives. (Vazquez-Calvo 2023) Humanists can also help decision makers see how history and culture affect policy options. (Allison and Miller 2019) And over time humans in various cultures have noticed patterns that emerge in numbers, and developed mathematical systems around them. (Galligan 2019) Common collocates for this word:

culture

popular
political
western
national
dominant
European
common
human
different
contemporary
modern
working-class
mass
local
corporate

Word Family: culture (noun)23/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-20 27 surveyAWL OPAL NGSL: NOUN COUNTABLE an investigation conducted by asking people carefully chosen and formatted questions
A nationally representative survey of adults revealed very similar numbers (81%). (Does Nature Have Value beyond What It Provides Humans? n.d.) To do this we asked participants to comment on a range of photographs that showed different types of food as part of an online survey. (Pink et al. 2020) Another recent survey found that greater daily Facebook use is associated with an increase in academic distraction. (Vasilev 2019) According to this European Social Survey data, the share of women who agreed that it’s important to care for nature and the environment is higher than the share of men in all European countries. (Profeta 2024) The fact the survey concluded “one in three Australians aged 18 years and over (32.8% or 5.6 million people) had abnormal or high total cholesterol levels” suggests “abnormal” is also very close to average. (Glasziou 2013) Common collocates for this word:

survey

comparative
random
longitudinal
preliminary
linguistic
free
great
sociolinguistic
bibliographical
wide-ranging
statistical
official
following
short
private

Word Family: survey (noun), survey (verb)Synonyms: poll, study, investigation 20/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-19 27 equationAWL: NOUN COUNTABLE a mathematical formula showing how two values are equal (also used in a broad sense meaning taking many factors into account in an attempt to understand some issue)
You might be familiar with equations with one variable, like 2y = 14. (Jacobson 2019) What the equation seems to say is that energy equals mass times some number. (Baron 2021) This is what Einstein’s famous equations helped to explain – how we can expect space-time to move under different conditions. (Webb 2023) In this equation, the E is for energy, the m is for mass (which is roughly how much matter, or physical stuff, is in something), and c means the speed of light. (Baron 2021) Most people would like to be happier. But it isn’t always easy to know how to achieve that goal. Is there an equation for happiness?(Rutledge 2021) Common collocates for this word:

equation

simple
mathematical
single
quadratic
Cartesian
integral
basic
differential
resulting
linear
fundamental
famous
balanced
empirical
critical

Word Family: equation (noun), equate (verb), equal (adjective)19/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-18 27 documentationAWL AKL OPAL NGSL: NOUN UNCOUNTABLE written material in paper or digital form giving official information or documents of record
The emphasis on documentation and data collection reduces educators’ time with children and job satisfaction. (Rogers 2023) Language Documentation aims to reconstruct the unwritten history of indigenous peoples and to guarantee the future of their cultures and languages. (Cacciafoco 2025) We have contributed to the documentation of several Papuan languages from Alor Island, especially Abui, Kula, and Sawila. (Cacciafoco 2025) Historically, technical barriers limited the ability to create fake documentation even when motivation existed. (Grosse 2025) As AI tools make creating and editing convincing business documentation easier, these scam numbers have the potential to increase. (Grosse 2025) Common collocates for this word:

documentation

supporting
relevant
accompanying
new
technical
full
necessary
electronic
associated
appropriate
on-line
detailed
existing
original
legal

Word Family: documentation (noun), document (noun), document (verb), documentary (noun)Synonyms: evidence, certification, proof, authentication 18/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-17 27 maintenanceAWL OPAL NGSL: NOUN UNCOUNTABLE work done (usually on a regular basis) to keep machinery or infrastructure working properly
Bendable concrete makes infrastructure safer, extends its service life and reduces maintenance costs and resource use. (Li 2018) The lack of maintenance has contributed to leaking pipes and faulty infrastructure which now needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency as it contributes to major physical water losses. (Plessis 2022) Over the years, numerous improvements in aircraft design, maintenance and operational procedures have resulted from crash investigations. (Elham 2025) Any building or machine needs regular maintenance – we paint our doors and windows when they need it and we repair or replace our cars quite routinely. (Hunt 2016) Swapping a lawn for a meadow can increase drought tolerance and decrease maintenance such as regular mowing and watering, because meadows only need to be cut once a year and don’t need as much water. (Julier 2025) Whether you’re watching a ladybird crawl across your desk or visiting a vast expanse of nature, allow your attention to be undirected. It’s not laziness, it’s neurological maintenance. (Kenyon 2025) Common collocates for this word:

maintenance

regular
preventative
low
structural
proper
minimal
skilled
essential
long-term
general
on-site
ongoing
planned
scheduled
basic

Word Family: maintenance (noun), maintain (verb)Synonyms: conservation, repair, upkeep 17/02/2026 - Set 27
2026-02-16 27 creditAWL AKL OPAL: VERB TRANSITIVE to give acknowledgement of the ownership of created works (ideas, writing, inventions works of art, etc.)
Martin Luther, a German theologian, is often credited with starting the Protestant Reformation. (Little 2019) Atanasoff was credited with several breakthrough ideas that are still present in modern computers. (Jacobson 2019) Scientists will probably never be able to credit one person, or even a group of people, with music’s invention. (Dallman 2022) The invention of the silk bulletproof vest is often credited to the American physician George Emory Goodfellow (1855–1910), following his observation that silk was impenetrable to bullets. (Strickland 2024) The guidelines should establish how to claim credit for a work, who else must be credited, and when a work can be sold or copyrighted. (Hertzmann 2019) Word Family: credit (verb), credit (noun)Synonyms: acknowledge, attribute, ascribe 16/02/2026 - Set 27

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