Virtuous English AcademyRelationships — B1 English Vocabulary
This B1 vocabulary list gathers 40 intermediate English words about relationships — family, friends, love and falling out. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using relationships words in English
This list moves relationship vocabulary into a more formal register, and with it come two pronunciation points that written study alone will never reveal. Separate is said differently as a verb and as an adjective, and conflict moves its stress depending on whether it is a noun or a verb. Both patterns are productive across hundreds of English words, so this page is a good place to meet them.
What to watch out for
Separate: the verb and the adjective sound different
As a verb it is three clear syllables ending in a full vowel: SEP-a-rate, as in They separated last year. As an adjective the last syllable weakens: SEP-rit, as in two separate rooms. The same alternation appears in estimate, graduate, moderate and deliberate — a whole family of words where the verb ends in a strong -ate and the adjective or noun does not.
Conflict moves its stress
The noun stresses the first syllable — CON-flict — as in a conflict between the two families. The verb stresses the second — con-FLICT — as in Their accounts conflict. English does this with a long list of two-syllable pairs: record, present, increase, import, export, contract, permit. As a rule, nouns take the stress at the front and verbs at the back.
Register: sibling, spouse, acquaintance
These are the formal words, and using them in conversation sounds oddly bureaucratic. Sibling means brother or sister and appears mainly in writing and research. Spouse means husband or wife and belongs on forms. An acquaintance is someone you know slightly but would not call a friend. Fiancé is a man engaged to be married and fiancée a woman, both keeping the French accent.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: the family words that reach beyond the household, four verbs for a relationship coming apart and being put back, and four abstract nouns that do not all count the same way.
Family beyond the household: four precise words
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| ancestor | Somebody in your family from long before you were born. The opposite is a descendant. | His ancestors came from Ireland. |
| guardian | An adult legally responsible for a child who is not their own. A legal role, not an emotional one. | Her aunt became her legal guardian. |
| godmother | A woman who promises at a christening to take an interest in the child. Religious in origin, social in practice. | My godmother sends a card every year. |
| widow | A woman whose husband has died. The male equivalent is a widower, with the extra syllable. | She has been a widow for ten years. |
These four are precise in a way that everyday family words are not, and precision is exactly why they are useful in writing. Guardian in particular does real work on forms, where parent or guardian is the standard British phrase, and it is entirely separate from the newspaper of the same name.
Coming apart, and going back together
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| split | Informal, and used about couples ending a relationship: they split up last year. | The band split after their third album. |
| betray | To break somebody’s trust deliberately. Strong, and it takes a person as its object. | He felt betrayed by his closest friend. |
| forgive | To stop being angry about what somebody did. Irregular: forgive, forgave, forgiven. | She has never quite forgiven him. |
| reconcile | Formal, and usually passive or reflexive: they were reconciled. It takes two sides, not one. | The brothers were finally reconciled. |
The structures differ in a way worth noting. Forgive takes the person directly — I forgive you — and the offence goes after for. Reconcile almost never appears in the plain active voice about people; English says they were reconciled rather than they reconciled themselves, and the everyday alternative is simply make up.
Four abstract nouns, and how English counts them
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| loyalty | Uncountable when it means the quality, though divided loyalties exists as a fixed plural. | His loyalty to the team never wavered. |
| intimacy | Uncountable. It means closeness of any kind, not only the romantic sense learners expect. | There was an easy intimacy between them. |
| loneliness | Uncountable, and it names the feeling. Being alone is a fact; loneliness is what it does to you. | Loneliness affects older people badly. |
| bond | Countable, unlike the other three. You form a bond and it can be strong or close. | They formed a close bond at university. |
The distinction between alone, lonely and loneliness is the one worth fixing. Alone states a fact about how many people are in the room; lonely describes how that feels; and loneliness names the feeling as a thing you can write about. Plenty of people are happily alone, and that sentence is impossible if the three words are treated as one.
Collocations that sound natural
Six words that appear inside frames rather than on their own. Two of them take a preposition that has no equivalent in most other languages, which is why they go wrong so often.
propose
propose to somebodypropose marriageaccept a proposalpropose a toast
In the romantic sense the preposition is to and there is no object: he proposed to her. In a meeting the same verb takes a direct object and means to suggest formally, and propose a toast is what you do standing up at a wedding.
rely
rely on somebodyrely on him to helpyou can rely on itheavily rely on
It can never appear without on, so I rely you is impossible. The related adjective reliable describes the person being relied on, and depend on is an almost exact synonym with the same fixed preposition.
admire
greatly admireadmire somebody foran admireradmire the view
The quality you admire follows for: I admire her for her patience. The verb also has a plainly visual sense with no praise attached at all, which is why you can admire the view without approving of anything.
gossip
gossip aboutoffice gossipa piece of gossipidle gossip
Uncountable as a noun, so one item is a piece of gossip and never a gossip — though a gossip does exist for a person who does it, which is mildly insulting. As a verb it takes about.
appreciate
I would appreciate it ifgreatly appreciateappreciate the offerfully appreciate
It always needs an object, which is why the polite request is I would appreciate it if you could with the it in place. Dropping that it is one of the most common errors in formal emails, and the sentence stops working without it.
reunion
a family reuniona school reunionhold a reunionan emotional reunion
Countable, and the verb is hold or have. The related verb reunite is usually passive about people — the family was reunited — and the whole word carries a warmth that a plain meeting does not.
Where each word belongs
Seven words that place you socially as much as they carry meaning. Relationship vocabulary is where the difference between a form, a conversation and a formal letter shows most clearly.
- fiancéFrench · and the second e mattersThe man is a fiancé and the woman a fiancée, with an extra e. Both keep the accent in careful British writing and both are pronounced the same way. The word is slightly formal, and many British couples say my partner instead until the wedding.
- affairTwo senses · one of them scandalOn its own about a relationship it means a secret romantic one, and have an affair is unambiguous. In the plural or with a modifier it is entirely neutral — foreign affairs, current affairs, a family affair — so the singular with no modifier is the loaded one.
- singleForms · and a tick boxOn an official form it is one of the marital status options alongside married, divorced and widowed. In conversation it means available, which is why the question are you single? is understood immediately. Note it also means one of something in a single ticket.
- householdWriting · official and statisticalEverybody living at one address, whether or not they are related — which is exactly why official English prefers it to family. It appears in household income and household name, the second meaning somebody everybody has heard of.
- mutualFormal · and one famous phraseFelt or done by both sides: mutual respect, the decision was mutual. Its commonest appearance is a mutual friend, meaning somebody two people both know, which has no shorter equivalent in English.
- devotedStrong · and always approvingCompletely committed to somebody, and it takes to. It is warmer and heavier than loyal, and it is used about family, long marriages and pets rather than about colleagues. The noun devotion is uncountable.
- befriendWriting · and it only goes one wayTo make friends with somebody who needed it, which is why charities befriend isolated people. The subject is the one taking the initiative, so it is not a two-way verb like meet. It belongs to written English almost entirely.
Sentences to try
Four frames at the formal end of the register. Say each aloud and check the stress on the two-syllable words.
- They decided to separate after fifteen years.
- There is an ongoing conflict between the two departments.
- She is an acquaintance rather than a close friend.
- The form asks for the name of your spouse and any siblings.
Questions about relationships vocabulary
How do you pronounce "separate"?
It depends on the word class. The verb has a full final syllable: SEP-a-rate, rhyming the ending with rate — We separated the documents. The adjective reduces it to a weak vowel: SEP-rit — They live in separate houses. Many English words behave this way, with a strong -ate for the verb and a weak one for the noun or adjective: estimate, graduate, duplicate, moderate, deliberate. Getting it right is one of the clearest signs of an advanced speaker.
Why does "conflict" sound different as a noun and a verb?
Because English marks the difference with stress. The noun is CON-flict, with the emphasis on the first syllable: an armed conflict. The verb is con-FLICT, with the emphasis on the second: The two reports conflict. This pattern covers dozens of two-syllable pairs — a RE-cord but to re-CORD, an IN-crease but to in-CREASE, an IM-port but to im-PORT. The reliable rule is that the noun takes the front stress and the verb the back.
When should I use "sibling" instead of brother or sister?
Sibling is a formal, gender-neutral term that belongs in writing, forms, research and official contexts: Participants with three or more siblings… In ordinary conversation English speakers say brothers and sisters, and Do you have any siblings? sounds noticeably stiff. The same register gap applies to spouse against husband or wife, and to offspring against children. Choosing the formal word in casual speech is a subtle error, but a noticeable one.