Where do people get all these big words they don't understand, anyway...?
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I know one way.
We have probably all been in that position: snapping our fingers and saying uuuuummmmm, as we try to conjure some word that fitsour situation perfectly, but we can't think of it. There are a lot of similar words we can think of, but none is up to the task of the right word. There's only one right word in a sea of similar words!
When you use a thesaurus without context, your writing will frequently sound off to very off, just the way your approximation of the the right word will sound off when you use it in place of the actual right word. You get kind of close, but that's not it.
And sometimes it can be really, really off. What's more, sometimes a dictionary can't even save you. So let's talk about how you do use a thesaurus, and to what degree you need to research beyond it.
👉Use the thesaurus to remind you of the right word. While writing, I often have those finger-snapping moments where I really want a word I know, but I can't remember it. The thesaurus is great to jog the memory. In general, using thesaurus results is totally fine if you know well the resulting words.
👉 If you don't know a word really, really well, you need to research it. This is more than looking it up in the dictionary; this is finding examples of it in the wild across a wide range of sources. Sometimes a dictionary will supply these, but not always adequately.
In the end, be cautious, and err on the side of not using the word if you're on the fence whether or not you grasp it. You won't see me trying out a lot of Early Modern English words and phrases (think Shakespeare) for this very reason. I just don't grasp EME well enough; it's practically like another language!
On that note, I would advise that you too be very careful employing thees and thous. It's harder than it looks, especially if you want to make the character sound that way! It's more than just a word switch here or there.
And on a tenuously related note, don't use 'orbs' for 'eyes.'
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I don't know where that started, but it's an immediate turn-off for serious readers and writers. 'Orbs' as 'eyes' has no authoritative, literary, or clever background. Someone didn't feel like saying 'eyes' again and replaced it with a shape. It's also plain bizarre, because we don't see eyes as orb-shaped from the outside, so what is being illustrated?
Is it this?
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He looked at me deeply, his golden orbs bright... I swooned.
To make something like 'orbs' work as 'eyes,' you would need a literary device to pair them, such as metaphor, but I wouldn't recommend it at this point. The word is expired, unless you're writing a parody.
