Language tip of the week: feelings

In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. In this series of language tips to accompany the Real Vocabulary theme we look at how you can expand your vocabulary in English by using different words and expressions instead of core vocabulary items.

This set of language tips will explore the words and phrases we use to talk about feelings. This week’s tip looks at words and phrases that mean a feeling:

feeling:
A feeling of calm came over her. ♦ Parents often experience deep feelings of guilt when their children fail. ♦ Love is a wonderful feeling.
emotion a strong feeling such as love or fear, especially when this is difficult to control:
Jealousy is an ugly emotion. ♦ You can’t let your emotions rule your life. ♦ She never shows any emotion at all. ♦ Religion is a subject that arouses strong emotions.
feelings someone’s emotions, especially when these are sensitive and likely to be affected by what other people say:
He finds it difficult to express his feelings. ♦ You shouldn’t be ashamed of these feelings – they’re quite natural. ♦ hurt someone’s feelings (=to make someone feel upset) I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
To have feelings for someone means to be attracted to someone or to be in love with them:
Do they still have feelings for each other? ♦ I’m trying to forget that I have feelings for you.
passion a powerful emotion, for example love or anger:
He was a man who was ruled by his passions. ♦ She spoke with passion about the plight of the refugees. ♦ He flew into a passion (=became very angry).