What's the difference between awe and bewilderment?

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.

Bewilderment


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being bewildered.
  • (n.) A bewildering tangle or confusion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For all Lagarde's charm, it's hard not to feel a sense of Alice In Wonderland bewilderment about the IMF's work.
  • (2) Low Social group membership was positively associated with scores on the POMS Depression-Dejection and Confusion-Bewilderment Scales; and on the MCMI Avoidant, Schizotypal, Passive-Aggressive, Psychotic Thinking, Psychotic Depression, Alcohol Abuse, and Borderline Scales.
  • (3) ?” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson ‘humbled’ to be appointed foreign secretary – video There was also bewilderment at Johnson’s appointment in Beijing’s diplomatic circles.
  • (4) But bewilderment quickly turned to horror after the gunman tossed two gas canisters into the room and began firing, spraying the audience with bullets.
  • (5) He peered up in bewilderment and got back on to his feet.
  • (6) They have expressed bewilderment that Austin has not addressed it forcefully.
  • (7) But things move so fast today – and the bewilderment, content, disbelief with which Twitter was greeted.
  • (8) For Heath, there was a slight sense of bewilderment mixed in with the euphoria and a little bit of relief that the league's big dogs had fulfilled their half of the on-field bargain.
  • (9) Maria Sharapova’s racket sponsor, Head, have provoked bewilderment on social media after celebrating the reduction of the tennis player’s doping ban from two years to 15 months on Twitter.
  • (10) He articulates the frustration and bewilderment of that section of uneducated, unskilled, low-paid white America , whose wages have stagnated and social mobility has stalled that is nostalgic for its local privileges and global status.
  • (11) I remember the bewilderment of officials when, despite my reputation as a free marketeer, I refused to call benefit claimants customers - the term they had adopted in a desire to please.
  • (12) Another message that she retweeted – from Malaysia's badminton world champion, Lee Chong Wei – expressed the bewilderment so many felt: "I don't think we are ready to accept this so soon after the #MH370 tragedy."
  • (13) Second, despite the self-serving bewilderment that is typically expressed whenever western nations are the targets rather than perpetrators of violence - why would anyone possibly be so monstrous and savage as to want to attack us this way?
  • (14) In Leeds, members of Savile's family issued a statement expressing their bewilderment at his crimes and their sympathy for his victims.
  • (15) The prodromal manifestations of PCA thrombotic occlusion include photopsias, hemianopic blackouts, headache, transient episodes of numbness, episodic lightheadedness, spells of bewilderment and rarely tinnitus.
  • (16) That kind of popular approval explains why the government's decision to formally launch the privatisation of the east coast mainline by offering it to tender is causing such bewilderment, confusion and anger among many regular travellers on the London-to-Edinburgh route.
  • (17) It was the year it snowed really late in December, and public transport was in a state of bewilderment at how to cope with it all.
  • (18) The student “had darkened her features with make-up!” he says, in utter bewilderment.
  • (19) And, strangely for westerners, this frantically rightwing party is also the party of what remains of the welfare state, standing up for those millions for whom the transition to capitalism has brought only loss and bewilderment.
  • (20) Adult taste can be demanding work – so hard, in fact, that some of us, when we become adults, selectively take up a few childish things, as though in defeated acknowledgment that adult taste, with its many bewilderments, is frequently more trouble than it is worth.