How to make words “stick”

From The Week, on how to make new words "stick": "Try mind mapping, which is essentially a word association exercise on paper. Take your word-of-the-day and start connecting it to other related words. If your new word is gaucherie, you can connect various words to it, such as tactless, boorish, awkward, faux pas, gaffe, blunder, unsophisticated ... etc. Instead of just reading or hearing your new word and going on to your next activity, you have taken a few minutes to make notes that will help your brain set up neural interconnections."