If you traveled to Australia for the summer and decided you wanted to take a walk on the hot sand at a beach or pool, you would ask for a pair of thongs for your feet. If you went to England and it was dark outside and you needed something to illuminate your path, you would ask for a torch. If you wanted some sliced and fried potatoes with your burger in England, you would order some chips. If you were in your 4th year of highschool in the United States, you're a senior.
All of these words are used in the English language as a whole, but mean completely different things depending on what country or region you are in or what lexicon is used in your dictionary. A tap in Canada is a place where you wash your hands or run a faucet, in the United States this is called a sink, but tap in the United States means the water that comes out that is slightly purified by your county water management system. The word ‘tap’ (when referring to water works) means different things depending where you are.
However, this is not comparable to two different words that mean the same thing but are just another way to say it. For example, a little gray bug that rolls up in a ball when frightened is called a rolley polley on the West coast, but on the East coast it's called a pill bug. Both of these terms are correct to refer to the bug, and if you used the term unoriginal to the region you're in, people may be confused, but it wouldn't mean a completely different thing. A person who goes to a Walmart and asks for a pair of thongs so they could walk on a sandy beach would get some weird looks in the United States (west coast).
Words will also have different terms or slang depending on one's age or generation, as well as the region they grew up in or that their parents grew up in. My father is a boomer, and he called hair conditioner “cream rinse” when I was growing up. His generation tends to use this term for the moisturizing hair product.
Being born with immigrant parents or non-english speaking parents can also contribute to the words we use to describe things. When I was very young, before kindergarten, I wasn't speaking English unless my father was home. I didn't know how to say the word “oatmeal” in English for a long time. If I wanted oatmeal at home, I would simply say “I want oatmeal” in the other language. When I got to school and spoke more English, I realized later on that I didn't know the word oatmeal and had to vaguely describe it as a hot breakfast food that's mushy, at some point I finally learned it.
Words don't only differ in other languages, or countries, but can differ by simply traveling to another city or coast.
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