What's the difference between awe and awk?

Awe


Definition:

  • (n.) Dread; great fear mingled with respect.
  • (n.) The emotion inspired by something dreadful and sublime; an undefined sense of the dreadful and the sublime; reverential fear, or solemn wonder; profound reverence.
  • (v. t.) To strike with fear and reverence; to inspire with awe; to control by inspiring dread.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "I wanted it to have a romantic feel," says Wilson, "recalling Donald Campbell and his Bluebird machines and that spirit of awe-inspiring adventure."
  • (2) I have had the awe-inducing pleasure of standing alone among the giant trees, both sequoias and redwoods, and hearing nothing but the chatter of the squirrels and the high wind in the tallest branches.
  • (3) Let’s leave that discussion to another day, but imagine a combination of the two – sort of Transformers meets Ex Machina – in which a race of giant sexy robots battles it out with another race of really mean giant sexy robots while paltry human beings look on in awe, and teenage boys (and girls) experience incredibly conflicting and disturbing sensual awakenings in the front row of the Beckenham Odeon.
  • (4) But as a professional engineer, Alwash admits to having been in awe at what Saddam's men had done.
  • (5) An activist has discipline, goals and strategy.” Amy K. Nelson (@AmyKNelson) Amazing scene here at QuickTrip: exiled Tibetan monks here & people are in awe, hugging them, wanting photos.
  • (6) From where he stood, the Real Madrid coach watched in awe as barely metres away Gareth Bale started the sprint that ended with him scoring what he admitted was the "biggest" goal of his career: a 50-metre gallop that won the Copa del Rey for Real Madrid .
  • (7) The world is in awe of China’s relentless capacity to produce gargantuan cities, each outdoing the most recent superlative that describes its predecessor.
  • (8) He’s sensitive, intelligent, rather awe-inspiring and slightly frightening, but he is a real person, you can get really involved in him.
  • (9) One day they hope to recreate a full-size, ocean-going replica Roskilde 6, and send it across the sea to awe rather than to terrorise the coasts of the British Isles.
  • (10) Are we fighting for a better understanding of what is going on in our sport or are we trying to get power?’” Saddique Shaban (@SaddiqueShaban) No let up in Kenyan athletes siege at Roadha House as besieged officials watch in awe.
  • (11) But it was awe-inspiring to watch Rivers try: she had the stamina of someone (several someones) a fraction of her age.
  • (12) Of course a father looking at the ultrasound image of his gestating, 20-week-old daughters is going to feel love and awe and the majesty of life, and deeply feel that those are his babies and that they are people.
  • (13) Despite pressure from leaders in Europe and across the world – from David Cameron to Barack Obama – the ECB has resisted calls for a "shock and awe" intervention in the bond markets to support countries such as Italy and Spain, which have seen their borrowing costs soar in the past two weeks.
  • (14) A surgical intervention is dangerous for the old patient awing to the reduced reactiveness and polymorbity.
  • (15) Malton says she is "in awe" of how he goes about the work.
  • (16) The right has spent almost every moment of the last six years painting leftists as people gazing in blissful awe at Obama.
  • (17) When Spielberg asked him to design the mothership for the climax of Close Encounters, the artist drew on a dream from years earlier, in which he had seen an awe-inspiring spacecraft with pipes and stairways jutting out from its underside.
  • (18) He liked the band, and we gave him $10,000, which was probably a big influence.” Their second (far more unlikely) collaboration with P-Funk main man Clinton was such a success that the mere mention of his name sends the band into a love-glow of awe.
  • (19) Only a rare few have accomplished this noble journey and can attest to the feeling of awe that accompanies such a moment in one’s life.
  • (20) Yet in the face of the country’s political and media establishment warning Greeks to vote yes – echoing every major European leader (and quite a few faceless ones) – and the shock-and-awe tactics of the European Central Bank in pulling the plug on Greek banks , the country still delivered a loud no to austerity, troika-style.

Awk


Definition:

  • (a.) Odd; out of order; perverse.
  • (a.) Wrong, or not commonly used; clumsy; sinister; as, the awk end of a rod (the but end).
  • (a.) Clumsy in performance or manners; unhandy; not dexterous; awkward.
  • (adv.) Perversely; in the wrong way.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As the journalist Anand Gopal has explained brilliantly , powerbrokers such as AWK and the Barakzai strongman and former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai not only seized control of Nato purse-strings by acquiring lucrative contracts, but they also manipulated US intelligence and US special forces to gain help with their predatory and retaliatory agenda.
  • (2) The program is written in AWK (a small interpreted computer language), which can run on all computer platforms commonly found in laboratories.
  • (3) The problem of "malign actors" such as AWK could only be solved not by military force, but by a political process: President Karzai had to find a means to divorce himself from the warlords such as his brother and broaden the base of his political rule.
  • (4) The burial of of AWK , as he was known, passed without incident amid tight security provided by the Afghan national security forces.
  • (5) They worried about the power vacuum AWK would leave behind.
  • (6) Seventy per cent of Awkly patients virtually had no side-effects vs. 15% in the EPIbiwkly group.
  • (7) On the streets of Kandahar, where I stayed unembedded last year, I reported on how it was obvious the armed militias of AWK and other strongmen like Sherzai who ruled the roost were feared far more than the Taliban.
  • (8) Of the 149 patients evaluable for response, the response rate was 36% for Awkly vs. 22% for EPIbiwkly (P = 0.10).
  • (9) In this triumph of realpolitik, the death of AWK is a big setback.
  • (10) And so, just as the US hurried to defeat the Taliban in 2001 and needed the warlords to accomplish that task, as they prepare to leave, they risk depending on men such as AWK to secure their withdrawal.
  • (11) A case in point is an ally of AWK and notorious gangster in his own right, the border police chief Abdul Razaq.
  • (12) weekly (Awkly) as bolus injection or 50 mg 4-epidoxorubicin biweekly over a 3-h infusion time (EPIbiwkly).
  • (13) The actor in chief was the man universally referred to as AWK – Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, who was killed yesterday .
  • (14) They knew how dependent they were on him: it was AWK and Sherzai who staffed and guarded the Nato bases, who secured their vital road movements, provided intelligence and who supplied the manpower for some secret strike forces run by the CIA and US special forces.
  • (15) In the face of such analysis, Carter and his then commander, General Stan McChrystal , decided to face down AWK.