Shades of meaning distinguishes the small, subtle differences between words. For example, the adjectives “happy” and “ecstatic” both show an emotion, but one packs a bigger punch than the other. When students study shades of meaning, they learn to better express how they are feeling or what they are thinking.
Connotation is the use of a word to suggest a different association than its literal meaning, which is known as denotation. ... Connotations can be either positive, negative, or neutral. Writers often use different connotations to inject multiple layers of meaning into a word, phrase, or passage
