What's the difference between awe and fear?

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.

Fear


Definition:

  • (n.) A variant of Fere, a mate, a companion.
  • (n.) A painful emotion or passion excited by the expectation of evil, or the apprehension of impending danger; apprehension; anxiety; solicitude; alarm; dread.
  • (n.) Apprehension of incurring, or solicitude to avoid, God's wrath; the trembling and awful reverence felt toward the Supreme Belng.
  • (n.) Respectful reverence for men of authority or worth.
  • (n.) That which causes, or which is the object of, apprehension or alarm; source or occasion of terror; danger; dreadfulness.
  • (n.) To feel a painful apprehension of; to be afraid of; to consider or expect with emotion of alarm or solicitude.
  • (n.) To have a reverential awe of; to solicitous to avoid the displeasure of.
  • (n.) To be anxious or solicitous for.
  • (n.) To suspect; to doubt.
  • (n.) To affright; to terrify; to drive away or prevent approach of by fear.
  • (v. i.) To be in apprehension of evil; to be afraid; to feel anxiety on account of some expected evil.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (2) Since the start of this week, markets have been more cautious, with bond yields in Spain reaching their highest levels in four months on Tuesday amid concern about the scale of the austerity measures being imposed by the government and fears that the country might need a bailout.
  • (3) S&P – the only one of the three major agencies not to have stripped the UK of its coveted AAA status – said it had been surprised at the pick-up in activity during 2013 – a year that began with fears of a triple-dip recession.
  • (4) On Friday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry appeared to confirm those fears, telling reporters that the joint declaration, a deal negotiated by London and Beijing guaranteeing Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years, “was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance”.
  • (5) I fear that I will have to go through another witch-hunt in order to apply for this benefit."
  • (6) And adding to this toxic mix, was the fear that the hung parliament would lead to a weak government.
  • (7) Ex-patients of a dental fear clinic were found to have significantly reduced, yet still high, dental anxiety scores in comparison with the pre-intervention scores.
  • (8) The hypothesis that the standard acoustic startle habituation paradigm contains the elements of Pavlovian fear conditioning was tested.
  • (9) Wharton feared that if his bill had not cleared the Commons on this occasion, it would have failed as there are only three sitting Fridays in the Commons next year when the legislation could be heard again should peers in the House of Lords successfully pass amendments.
  • (10) In a recent study, Orr and Lanzetta (1984) showed that the excitatory properties of fear facial expressions previously described (Lanzetta & Orr, 1981; Orr & Lanzetta, 1980) do not depend on associative mechanisms; even in the absence of reinforcement, fear faces intensify the emotional reaction to a previously conditioned stimulus and disrupt extinction of an acquired fear response.
  • (11) But that promise was beginning to startle the markets, which admire Monti’s appetite for austerity and fear the free spending and anti-European views of some Italian politicians.
  • (12) First, Dr Collins is fear-mongering when he says that ‘lives will be lost’ as a result of our calculations.
  • (13) Whether out of fear, indifference or a sense of impotence, the general population has learned to turn away, like commuters speeding by on the freeways to the suburbs, unseeingly passing over the squalor.
  • (14) Under pressure from many backbenchers, he has tightened planning controls on windfarms and pledged to "roll back" green subsidies on bills, leading to fears of dwindling support for the renewables industry.
  • (15) The countries have accused each other of cross-border attacks and there are fears the current tension could spark a wider war with Nkunda at its centre.
  • (16) They have not remotely done this so far, largely from fear of domestic political consequences that cannot be simply dismissed.
  • (17) Likud warned: “Peres will divide Jerusalem.” Arab states feared that his dream of a borderless Middle East spelled Israeli economic colonialism by stealth.
  • (18) One of the reasons for doing this study is to give a voice to women trapped in this epidemic,” said Dr Catherine Aiken, academic clinical lecturer in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology of the University of Cambridge, “and to bring to light that with all the virology, the vaccination and containment strategy and all the great things that people are doing, there is no voice for those women on the ground.” In a supplement to the study, the researchers have published some of the emails to Women on Web which reveal their fears.
  • (19) Some have been threatened and assaulted, while others’ homes have been ransacked, their families living in constant fear.
  • (20) The population prevalence of high dental fear was 115 fearful children per 1000 population (SE = 0.02).

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