What's the difference between agony and distress?

Agony


Definition:

  • (n.) Violent contest or striving.
  • (n.) Pain so extreme as to cause writhing or contortions of the body, similar to those made in the athletic contests in Greece; and hence, extreme pain of mind or body; anguish; paroxysm of grief; specifically, the sufferings of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.
  • (n.) Paroxysm of joy; keen emotion.
  • (n.) The last struggle of life; death struggle.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "The new feminine ideal is of egg-smooth perfection from hairline to toes," she writes, describing the exquisite agony of having her fingers, arms, back, buttocks and nostrils waxed.
  • (2) It has been awfully hard-won, carved slowly out of a big block of human agony.
  • (3) Her agony and her rapture stay interior, and they flip-flop like nerves in this beautiful, grave black-and-white movie.
  • (4) Those who remember the Two Davids of the 1987 SDP-Liberal Alliance will recall the exquisite agony only too well, cruelly captured by the Spitting Image puppet of little Steel perched in big Owen's pocket.
  • (5) Using male and female Wistar rats, pituitary response to cardiac and respiratory failure type (CFT and RFT) sudden death caused by the intravenous administration of KC1 and SCC, respectively, was examined by analyzing variation in pituitary immunoreactive beta-endorphin (IR-beta-EP) levels determined by radioimmunoassay after death and in circulating IR-beta-EP levels during periods of agony.
  • (6) I was in the surgical ward at Westmorland General Hospital on Kendal Green, and it was agony.
  • (7) I'd go after work and he'd paint till 1 or 1.30 in the morning, and it was agony lying there on the floor.
  • (8) Evidently fuelled by the agony of losing a series twelve months ago when the trophy was almost within their grasp, they also had the teamwork, technique and experience to turn their quest for revenge into a reality.
  • (9) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Even those who’ve never seen a downhill ski race couldn’t help but sympathise with Bode Miller’s agony at missing out on a medal in what will surely be the last Olympic event of his career.
  • (10) "When the disaster was big enough," King writes, "agony and violent death had an enriching quality."
  • (11) Even at UCH, when no one was there for us and my father, having not slept for almost 30 hours, was pulling his hair out in agony, I tried to look at it all as a kind of comedy of errors."
  • (12) They were subject, of course, to the prison censor, but the agony over Winnie, and the passion of which that agony was a product, blazes through them.
  • (13) That he ended up in the dock in The Hague at all surprised many who have studied the man and his country's agony through the 1990s.
  • (14) Shawcross, however, maintains there was no bad intent and said for that reason he has not been tormenting himself about the moment he collided with Ramsey's right leg and left the teenager writhing in agony.
  • (15) He notes the uneven agony - 80% will land in developing countries.
  • (16) The poor animals are thrown back into the water to die in agony, a practice condemned by environmental campaigners.
  • (17) The rest was pure agony for the Australians, give or take a yellow card for Sonny Bill Williams, given for a dangerous tackle.
  • (18) The woman before you in agony pushing and pushing, losing all dignity, does not care one bit whether I am feeling alarmed at her screaming, worried about where I should be standing, wondering whether I should rub her back or try and make small talk between contractions.
  • (19) Litvinenko sipped “three or four times” from a cup of radioactive tea, and died in agony 23 days later, the inquiry heard last week.
  • (20) Our most excruciating agony is of not being noticed in the world.

Distress


Definition:

  • (n.) Extreme pain or suffering; anguish of body or mind; as, to suffer distress from the gout, or from the loss of friends.
  • (n.) That which occasions suffering; painful situation; misfortune; affliction; misery.
  • (n.) A state of danger or necessity; as, a ship in distress, from leaking, loss of spars, want of provisions or water, etc.
  • (n.) The act of distraining; the taking of a personal chattel out of the possession of a wrongdoer, by way of pledge for redress of an injury, or for the performance of a duty, as for nonpayment of rent or taxes, or for injury done by cattle, etc.
  • (n.) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
  • (n.) To cause pain or anguish to; to pain; to oppress with calamity; to afflict; to harass; to make miserable.
  • (n.) To compel by pain or suffering.
  • (n.) To seize for debt; to distrain.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Perinatal mortality is strongly associated with obstetrical factors, respiratory distress syndrome, and prematurity.
  • (2) No respiratory-distress syndrome of the newborn occurred when total amniotic-fluid cortisol was greater than 60 ng per milliliter (16 patients).
  • (3) Early views of the Type A behaviour pattern (TABP) sought to disengage it from either neuroticism or emotional distress.
  • (4) Sleep alterations in addicted newborns could be related to central nervous system (CNS) distress caused by withdrawal.
  • (5) For many it had still a moderating effect on distress at the present but appeared to be mainly used out of "psychological dependence".
  • (6) Marie Johansson, clinical lead at Oxford University's mindfulness centre , stressed the need for proper training of at least a year until health professionals can teach meditation, partly because on rare occasions it can throw up "extremely distressing experiences".
  • (7) In contrast, the number of distressful childhood experiences reported was generally unrelated to empathy scores.
  • (8) The lavage model was considered suitable for reproduction of severe respiratory distress.
  • (9) Twenty-seven infants with respiratory distress and hypoxemia of noncardiac etiology were treated with tolazoline.
  • (10) A clearly recognizable relationship of SEH to gestational age and clinical status exists in that all SEH occur in premature infants under 2500 g birthweight (although only 56% of all premature infants have SEH) and 95% of SEH occur in infants with the respiratory distress syndrome (although only 60% of infants with the respiratory distress syndrome have SEH).
  • (11) Four hours after infusion, the animals displayed a clinical and pathological pattern which closely resembled post-traumatic acute respiratory distress syndrome, including hypoxia, hypocarbia, thrombocytopenia, increased pulmonary capillary permeability to albumin, interstitial edema, hypertrophy of alveolar lining cells, and intra-alveolar hemorrhage.
  • (12) In turn, nursing strategies that are selected as a result of such theoretically based assessments are likely to be effective in preventing spiritual distress.
  • (13) There is no support in the system and it’s a very frightening and distressing situation to be in.
  • (14) Therefore, after head injuries we searched for C activation because it could result in the adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
  • (15) It has to be assumed that in calves with respiratory distress syndrome--in analogy to pulmonary immaturity--the blood clotting mechanism is not yet fully developed.
  • (16) At birth, the animals were in no distress but had mild pulmonary hypertension.
  • (17) If these recordings are repeated before or at the same time as other signs of fetal distress have been found we must think of pathological features such as intrauterine growth retardation, post-maturity, infections, rhesus incompatibility and diabetes.
  • (18) Sustained intubation (7 days) was necessary in only two infants because of developing respiratory distress as a result of prematurity or recurrent pleural fluid accumulation.
  • (19) Financial experts aren't immediately sure what to make of the report, but one theory is that the figure includes the 'profits' the European Central Bank has made by buying Greek debt at distressed levels since the crisis began: econhedge (@econhedge) suggestion that this is planned EUR31.5b+ECB profits.
  • (20) The results do not indicate any disorder in liver and muscle functions in prematurely born calves with or without respiratory distress syndrome.