How good is your vocabulary?

Do you know the difference between "stationery" and "stationary"?

Test your skills with your quiz (Deb Stgo/Creative Commons)

At school your teachers will have tried to cram your brain full of vocabulary, but it’s likely that you’ve given little thought to the breadth of your lexicon since then.

Try out quiz to test whether you’re like a walking thesaurus, or if you need to invest in a ‘Word a Day’ desk calendar.

If you didn’t perform as well as you’d hoped, don't worry. A recent study found that children who develop good reading habits have better vocabulary in later life, but it is still possible to improve as an adult.

To make their findings, researchers at the Institute of Education (IOE) tested people’s vocabulary at the ages of 10, 16 and 42, The Telegraph reported.

They found that those who read for pleasure aged 10 scored 67 per cent better when they hit 42. But those who read “highbrow” fiction between the ages of 16 and 42 greatly improved their wordpower.