connotation

The connotation of a word is the way people feel when they hear a word. It's more than just the definition. It is what the word has come to imply. An example is the word skinny. Even in our culture where girls and women are force-fed the belief that you have to be thin to be beautiful (LIES!), skinny is not a nice thing to call someone. It has a bad connotation. An understood meaning of being thin in a not attractive way. But the actually dictionary definition simply means thin.

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