These words refer to the act of taking in and comprehending written or printed words. Read is the most general of these, yielding no more connotations beyond the shared meaning for the whole group. It is the one word here that can apply to the act whether done in silence or done orally: reading the letter over to himself; reading the lesson aloud to her students. Peruse , by contrast, specifically means to read carefully, silently and with close attention, suggesting a demanding or complicated text that requires concentration and effort: perusing the contract in great detail before agreeing to sign it. Sometimes the word is substituted for read without these implications attached, as if some sort of elegance could be achieved by using a long word where a short one will do: quickly perusing the road sign before applying the brakes.

Devour also can refer to thorough reading, but it points not to a studious approach but to a zealous or enthusiastic infatuation for certain authors or genres: devouring every book that Ian Fleming wrote; devouring at least two murder mysteries a week. Unlike peruse , the word can suggest rapid reading that may or may not be retentive, and sometimes it can point merely to a habitual or methodical total consumption of a periodical: the sombre silence that always reigned in the house while father devoured the evening newspaper.

The remaining words point to hasty or cursory reading . Browse can indicate the act of strolling through a bookshop or library and sampling a number of books or periodicals without reading any, possibly as a way of selecting something to read more thoroughly: browsing through the science-fiction titles from something to read on the train. This meaning of the word has been extended to other kinds of shopping: browsing in dress shops during her lunch hour. Browse can also apply to the idle sampling of passages from one book or periodical: browsing about in the magazine without finding anything that interested him.

Leaf suggests the quick turning of pages in search of a particular item, with reading restricted to glimpses at key words or passages until the desired entry is found: quickly leafing through the phone book to find the numbers of a few restaurants. But the word can indicate also an idle looking over of a magazine or newspaper, especially one heavily illustrated, as a way of passing time; here, the word would suggest little serious purpose or little intention of reading much or for long: leafing through some old magazines until his turn in the barber’s chair came up.

Scan indicates the act of quickly glancing down the body of a text so that the mind can rapidly take in the gist of what is written. Thus, this action is more methodical than the actions indicated by browse and certainly leaf: scanning the articles that might give the information he needed, then browsing about in a few related news items and finally leafing past the sports and fashion sections tot he television programmes.

SEE; study.