What's the difference between anguish and wail?

Anguish


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To distress with extreme pain or grief.
  • (n.) Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This dilemma is at the heart of many people's anguished indecision over the wisdom of our action in Iraq.
  • (2) British MPs are deceiving themselves if they believe they do not bear some of the responsibility for the “terrible tragedy” unfolding in Syria, the former chancellor, George Osborne, said on Tuesday during an often anguished emergency debate in the House of Commons on the carnage being inflicted in eastern Aleppo.
  • (3) Infertility is, in all its forms, a most private, hidden anguish.
  • (4) Downing street – aware of the anguish of the families of these unconfirmed Britons – has privately expressed frustration at the cumbersome process of identification of the bodies following the killings last Friday.
  • (5) She said: "There has been a huge amount of anguish and endless discussion of what more could have been done to save this boy.
  • (6) As shown in an eponymous fly-on-the-wall documentary released earlier this year, Weiner refused to bow out of the race despite the anguish of his staff and Abedin, who often looked on in silence as her husband attempted to extricate himself from the scandal.
  • (7) The method to overcome the resistance to dental attention due to anguish is to establish a good relation-ship between the dentist and the patient, a good management of the ambivalent feeling of the child and the elimination of the phenomenon of transference.
  • (8) Some gifted and canny writers have made a mint by appealing to teenagers’ sense of anguish and victimhood, the notion that they are forever embattled and persecuted by a rotten world run by authoritarian bozos.
  • (9) A phenomenological approach permits to confirm the intuition of language in showing that the living experience of anguish is different from the one of anxiety.
  • (10) The anguish families experience when they are asked to make health care decisions for incompetent members has stimulated the search for adequate prior directives.
  • (11) It is a bizarre, fascinating, crazily over-the-top piece of self-portraiture which verges on self-vivisection, culminating in Kim's cracked performance of "Arirang", a Korean folk-song replete with anguish.
  • (12) This man’s anguish and his love for his children pour out of your image and it is [a] look that I saw in the faces of countless people as we took them from the boats.” Working on deadline, I lost track of the family.
  • (13) He spoke out after a survey of 23,000 women's views of their birth experience with the NHS revealed significant dissatisfaction, and sometimes anger and anguish.
  • (14) In my experience as a GP, I have learned that many people feel embarrassed and ashamed in telling a doctor about their mental anguish.
  • (15) EPA Gazza’s Italia 90 tears were but a trickling tributary compared with the Amazon of anguish unleashed by the shell-shocked hosts during their mortifying 7-1 loss to Germany.
  • (16) But Brief Encounter has survived such threats, because it is so well made, because Laura's voiceover narration is truly anguished and dreamy, because the music suckers all of us, and because Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard are perfect.
  • (17) Admission to a critical care unit often causes a great deal of distress and anguish, not only for the patient but also his or her family.
  • (18) It was hinted at this week by Adam Posen , retiring member of the Bank's monetary policy committee, in criticising his colleagues for their "anguished religious ethics" over quantitative easing.
  • (19) 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.
  • (20) "I know these measures are very tough … I am acutely aware of the hardship and the anguish such sacrifices have caused for Greeks," said Venizelos, adding that the measures would save the state €6.5bn – the equivalent of 3% of GDP.

Wail


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To choose; to select.
  • (v. t.) To lament; to bewail; to grieve over; as, to wail one's death.
  • (v. i.) To express sorrow audibly; to make mournful outcry; to weep.
  • (n.) Loud weeping; violent lamentation; wailing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) You couldn't get much more bohemian than the music playing in this room of tiny round tables, first French crooner Serge Gainsbourg and then cabaret freak Scott Walker wailing of their obelisk-size pain.
  • (2) Every now and then some rich Oga or Madam comes along in their bulletproof cars and wailing sirens, and distorts the delicate equilibrium of this body of traffic.
  • (3) In groups 1 and 2, clusters of cylindrical tubules, typical of the male gland, decreased in number and disappeared almost completely 2 wailed in these two groups throughout the remaining period of experiment.
  • (4) "Barcelona's habit of playing midfielders in defence will do them more harm than good," he wails.
  • (5) "Gnnmph, I can't 'ave it 'ere, I 'aven't 'ad my enema," wails a labouring housewife, straining fruitlessly on a communal tenement bog as horrified neighbours look on in their rollers.
  • (6) There were moments when music seemed to struggle to be heard over the tocking of iPod clickwheels and the wailing of record company executives.
  • (7) The army cleared itself of responsibility for the killing of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach three weeks ago during an artillery barrage after many Israelis were shaken by television pictures of a traumatised child wailing over the body of her father.
  • (8) While Arsenal fans have spent the last nine years gnashing and wailing, Hull supporters have cheered the incredible resurrection of their club, as David Conn explains here .
  • (9) Some family members, after years of begging for mercy and receiving none, broke down and wailed.
  • (10) The big story Once upon a time the Oscar ceremony was a comforting drone punctuated only by the odd song-and-dance routine and the banshee wailing of overwhelmed best actress award winners.
  • (11) Elsewhere on the carpet Quentin Tarantino is having a bop with Uma Thurman (again), Xavier Dolan is wearing an outrageous tux (again) and the boring normal people at the barriers are wailing for stars' attention (again).
  • (12) Later that night, Lola wailed in the street as the police prised her baby from her arms and led her into custody.
  • (13) Family members who had gathered at a hotel in Beijing wailed as they heard the news.
  • (14) Naderi offered his prayers to Dhu’s family at the end of his evidence, saying: “I wish I was able to pick up any abnormal signs that may have made a difference.” Carol Roe ran crying from the courtroom, her wail flowing back through the door to where Naderi was seated in the witness box.
  • (15) Sorrowful wails and sobs resounded as thousands of Rwandans packed the country's main sports stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of a devastating 100-day genocide.
  • (16) Sandy breaking out of the compound BB3 Sandy's insistence on his quirkiness got rather wearing, so it was just as well he made a bid for escape, with his new best friend Alex wailing, "Be careful, Sandy, be careful!"
  • (17) Starbucks admitted that while it can (quite incredibly) claim that its 700 UK stores are not profitable, through wails of what seemed like crocodile tears, its 30 coffee traders in Switzerland make an enormous 20% profit margin despite never seeing a coffee bean; a fact that the committee could not have helped noting might be related to the 12% tax it pays in that state.
  • (18) Their players are distraught and making a mess of everything, while the TV producer here is having an absolute ball picking out wailing Brazilians in the crowd.
  • (19) Another shows a scene of villagers wailing with grief: “Villagers grieve as their friend is put into the ambulance,” the voiceover says.
  • (20) Among those who finally decided that Kobani was on the brink was Mukdad Bozan, travelling with his wife, a wailing baby and three bedraggled older children.

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