What's the difference between agony and sorrow?

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.

Sorrow


Definition:

  • (n.) The uneasiness or pain of mind which is produced by the loss of any good, real or supposed, or by diseappointment in the expectation of good; grief at having suffered or occasioned evil; regret; unhappiness; sadness.
  • (n.) To feel pain of mind in consequence of evil experienced, feared, or done; to grieve; to be sad; to be sorry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It came in a mix of joy and sorrow and brilliance under pressure, with one of the most remarkable things you will ever see on a basketball court in the biggest moment.
  • (2) Troh, a 54-year-old nursing assistant, issued a statement on Wednesday that said: “I trust a thorough examination will take place regarding all aspects of his care … I am now dealing with the sorrow and anger that his son was not able to see him before he died.” That appeared to be a reference to frustration at the hospital’s initial failure to diagnose him correctly, and a delay of several days before they treated him with experimental drugs.
  • (3) Goodman deceived us all, the witnesses sorrowfully admitted.
  • (4) Photograph: AP This is the moment of our deepest sorrow.
  • (5) Separately, in a Question Time-style debate at the Radio Festival today, Ofcom executive Stewart Purvis said he reacted "more in sorrow than anger" at yesterday's stinging attack on the regulator by former GMG Radio chief executive John Myers .
  • (6) 'This is not the justice we seek': sorrow in Baltimore as grief turns into riots Read more The city has improved significantly in recent years – crime dropped, the economy improved, the population stopped declining for the first time in 60 years – but you couldn’t see Baltimore’s newfound prosperity in Freddie Gray’s backyard, or in the gardens nearby.
  • (7) But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief.” On death: “There is an end to everything and I want mine to come as quickly and painlessly as possible, not with me incapacitated, half in coma in bed and with a tube going into my nostrils and down to my stomach.” “Even from my sickbed, even if you are going to lower me to the grave and I feel that something is going wrong, I will get up.
  • (8) Time to listen to ‘World in Motion’ on loop while drowning a million sweet sorrows.
  • (9) Shara Proctor, who might have had hopes of gold while Okagbare busied herself with the 200m, managed only two steps of a run-up before clutching at her left thigh and leaving the arena with her hoodie pulled sorrowfully around her face.
  • (10) Prayer has comforted us in sorrow, and will help strengthen us for the journey ahead.
  • (11) "Would all these girls," he asks, with a sorrow that defies any glib, one-should-be-so-lucky retort, "be fucking me if they weren't getting paid?"
  • (12) I have immense sorrow over the loss of that child but I also have immense joy when I think of her.
  • (13) More than a dozen times in his presidency, Barack Obama has appeared before television cameras and issued statements to express sorrow at a mass shooting event in America.
  • (14) The emotion called chronic sorrow, introduced in 1962 by Olshansky, has had limited exposure in the literature.
  • (15) Yet the Brazilians who were photographed unleashing their sorrow on a cloudy, darkening evening, in scenes of anguish from Estádio Mineirão to Copacabana beach, were not mourning a massacre, atrocity or anything else that might seem to justify such infinite sadness.
  • (16) This too, I recognise, is another coping strategy, a way to get through what could be a sorrowful few years or even decades ahead.
  • (17) Every day I spend in sorrow, thinking about my family and how to reach the UK.” Intelligent, and very motivated, he is particularly frustrated at not being to able to study; eventually he hopes to become a doctor.
  • (18) For my own part, I would like to express sorrow and regret to those most distressed by the actions of my predecessor.
  • (19) American viewers mourning the death of Dan Stevens' character Matthew Crawley at the end of the show's Christmas special will be able to drown their sorrows with Downton wine, wear Downton jewellery and grow Downton roses, as part of a merchandising push aimed at capitalising on the drama's phenomenal global success.
  • (20) The concert has been long prepared, Josh and his friend Ahmed from the perilous estates nearby laying tracks to "Jessie Wright" and another song for Agnes – "a tribute to a girl got shot in Hoxton", Josh says, with apparent nonchalance, but a stab of sorrowful anger in his eye.