Collocation
The habitual or natural combination of words that frequently occur together. Collocations are pairs or groups of words with strong associative links in a language.
Real World
When Cadbury advertises a 'rich, velvety chocolate experience', 'rich' and 'velvety' are collocates of luxury food discourse — swapping them for synonyms like 'wealthy, furry chocolate' would sound absurd despite being semantically similar.
Exam Focus
Highlight unexpected or broken collocations as deliberate choices; examiners reward analysis of why a writer departs from conventional pairings.
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