Synonyms for "To Make Use Of"

This isn't really a blog post but I couldn't find another easy way to put the image below on the Web. It's from www.visualthesaurus.com, which is certainly something I'm happy to publicize a bit because it is indeed useful. This specific map addresses a problem I've had for years, which is finding a word to convey "making use of something". Typically I want to use "exploit" but that sounds rather harsh. This map has a number of alternatives.