What's the difference between bedevil and devil?

Bedevil


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To throw into utter disorder and confusion, as if by the agency of evil spirits; to bring under diabolical influence; to torment.
  • (v. t.) To spoil; to corrupt.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Similar paradoxes bedevilled all the other chief themes.
  • (2) But the bedeviled foray also works as a potent allegory on the slow, vice-like workings of conscience, as guilt hunts down the protagonists with the shrieking remorselessness of Greek furies.
  • (3) Complete monosomy 21 is claimed to be a rare chromosomal disorder in which the cytogenetic investigation is bedevilled by technical difficulties.
  • (4) The former chief of staff of Iraq’s army, General Babakir Zebari, who retired last year, conceded that the issue of ghost soldiers had bedevilled the military, along with vastly inflated tenders for weapons.
  • (5) Finally, there is abortion – an issue that bedevilled two of the GOP's Senate candidates, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, because they found it difficult to reconcile their extreme anti-abortion views with the question of whether pregnant rape victims should be able to get an abortion.
  • (6) Its complexity has bedevilled the sport since it was put in place in 2013, when set up by Formula One Mangement (FOM, run by Ecclestone) on behalf of owners CVC.
  • (7) Talking in his home and recording studio in the shipyard town of Perama, one of the areas worst hit by unemployment, Mitakidis is critical of those who won't stand up against the corruption that has long bedevilled the country.
  • (8) Finally, on what must be the umpteenth advantage, he finds one of the bruising aces that so bedevilled Nadal.
  • (9) In Scott & Bailey , for example, a good deal of the police work is mundane and the characters are bedevilled by the kinds of real-life domestic troubles that normally receive little more than lip service in police procedure.
  • (10) He acknowledges that the sector has been bedevilled in the past by accusations of secrecy and inefficiency.
  • (11) The "natural history" of prostate cancer may bedevil the development of guidelines for chemoprevention interventions.
  • (12) That ill-fated effort was bedeviled with missteps, including a question about climate change clumsily planted with an Iowan college student .
  • (13) Europe is an issue that has bedevilled the Tories for decades, splitting the party at crucial times in its history.
  • (14) The parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) is the other essential plank of oversight cited by the government, but it has also been bedevilled by criticism since it was established in 1994.
  • (15) With the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, Yemenis now have a chance to resolve the political crisis that has bedevilled the country since February.
  • (16) The effectiveness of the service given is bedevilled by certain features of the N.H.S.-in particular, the deplorable conditions of employment of staff in casualty departments.
  • (17) Soori Asgaram, a civil engineer who returned to Sri Lanka three months ago after living in Britain for 44 years, thought the result held out the best prospect for a resolution of the Tamil issue that has bedevilled the island for decades.
  • (18) The pope was elected with a mandate to shake up the church in Rome and help turn the page on an increasingly fraught and scandal-bedevilled papacy.
  • (19) Even before the spying controversy, the Key campaign was bedevilled by scandal, with a senior cabinet minister forced to resign following the publication of a book based on hacked emails that revealed links between the ruling centre-right National party and an attack-blogger.
  • (20) His emails home from his base in Paktika province near the border with Pakistan charted a growing disillusionment with his fellow soldiers, on a mission he apparently felt was bedevilled by gratuitous violence, racism and lack of purpose.

Devil


Definition:

  • (n.) The Evil One; Satan, represented as the tempter and spiritual of mankind.
  • (n.) An evil spirit; a demon.
  • (n.) A very wicked person; hence, any great evil.
  • (n.) An expletive of surprise, vexation, or emphasis, or, ironically, of negation.
  • (n.) A dish, as a bone with the meat, broiled and excessively peppered; a grill with Cayenne pepper.
  • (n.) A machine for tearing or cutting rags, cotton, etc.
  • (v. t.) To make like a devil; to invest with the character of a devil.
  • (v. t.) To grill with Cayenne pepper; to season highly in cooking, as with pepper.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) From Africa, the archbishop of Kenya warned "the devil has entered the church", while a few days before the ceremony Robinson received a postcard from England, depicting the high altar of Durham cathedral and bearing the message: "You fornicating, lecherous pig."
  • (2) Those with no idea of what he looks like might struggle to identify this modest figure as one of the world's most exalted film-makers, or the red devil loathed by rightwing pundits from Michael Gove down.
  • (3) So, in The Devil Wears Prada , the ferocious magazine chief played by Meryl Streep is beset by secret misery: unfaithful husband, tricky kids, wig issues.
  • (4) The experience of having had intercourse with the devil has in the past been regarded as evidence that the individual is a witch.
  • (5) Photograph: Alamy The Devils Postpile, near Mammoth Lakes on the east side of Yosemite, looks as if it might have been created by some satanic sculptor, but really it's just one of the world's best examples of columnar basalt, a similar geological feature to the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland.
  • (6) "The devil is in the detail and if the conditions are too much it could be very challenging to run it as a commercial operation," said one source.
  • (7) I do want to rule the world.” Bowie was also getting unhealthily interested in the occult; in her memoir, his then wife Angie Bowie describes how he was convinced that the indoor pool in their house in Doheny Drive was possessed by the devil , which led to the pair of them attempting an exorcism.
  • (8) Camille O'Sullivan In 2007, the sinister, humorous gem Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea spread like wildfire just after its opening, and you had to kill to get a ticket.
  • (9) Taking out such a deal was, in their view, tantamount to getting into bed with the devil – and certainly out of the question for a prudent financial journalist.
  • (10) Mitt Romney praises Trump after 'deal with the devil' dinner Read more “It’s not about revenge, it’s about what’s good for the country, and I’m able to put this stuff behind us,” Trump said in a television interview on NBC’s Today show on Friday.
  • (11) An entire generation has come to embrace the deflationary devil they know.
  • (12) Instead, Schieffer repeatedly pushed even Hayden to go further in his defense of the NSA and in his attacks on Snowden than Hayden wanted to, asking such tough "questions" like this one, about Obama's proposal to have a "devils' advocate in the FISA court: "BOB SCHIEFFER: Well-- well let me just cite an example and let's say that the NSA runs across something that they think an attack on the country is imminent-- "GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN: Right.
  • (13) Some tours take tourists to mask shops; we should be taking them to the mask makers, so that they get paid for their work directly.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest A fearsome devil mask Photograph: Alamy The current government, which replaced Rajapaksa’s administration two years ago, has made a commitment to sustainable tourism.
  • (14) Meanwhile, a number of writers have publicly come out against the second deal – including Ursula Le Guin, who resigned from the Authors Guild amid accusations that it was making a "deal with the devil" and selling its members "down the river" .
  • (15) The official code of conduct for special advisers adopts legalistic terms to describe their key role as "devilling", or squirrelling away at all government policy and communications to ensure it toes the appropriate political line.
  • (16) Once Leveson has published, the debate will finally be at this level of detail because that is where the devil is.
  • (17) In addition, Tyson had told the Mail on Sunday : “There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the Devil comes home.
  • (18) Debbie Abrahams, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “As ever with this government though, the devil is in the detail.
  • (19) The "Death Angels" believed they had a better chance of getting to heaven if they killed some of these "grafted snakes" and "blue-eyed devils".
  • (20) On a trip to the Near East, Dadd became deluded that the Egyptian god Osiris was directing him to eliminate the devil's influence.

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