What's the difference between beleaguer and vex?

Beleaguer


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To surround with an army so as to preclude escape; to besiege; to blockade.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) United had been spared and, in the next attack, Jesse Lingard turned Michael Carrick’s crossfield pass across the penalty area for Rooney, so beleaguered recently, to head in the team’s first goal for six hours and 44 minutes of play.
  • (2) Iraq's beleaguered prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, no longer has the authority to unite the country's disparate sects.
  • (3) The dramatic rise of Islamic State (Isis) in Syria and Iraq is helping to tear apart the Pakistani Taliban, the beleaguered militant group beset by infighting and splits.
  • (4) And the contrast between the brave but beleaguered Yakubu and Tema staff doctor Patricia Asamoah could not be more marked.
  • (5) The beleaguered Afghan army and police were still waiting late on Tuesday for reinforcements promised by the government in Kabul.
  • (6) Gordon Brown's supporters today warned would-be rebels that the Labour party was in no mood for a leadership challenge, as they sought to rally around the beleaguered prime minister.
  • (7) Sakuma's report will come as another blow to Japan's beleaguered whaling industry.
  • (8) Russia’s economic difficulties intensified on Friday as the beleaguered rouble crashed during morning trading, stoking fears that the country was on the verge of a full-blown currency crisis reminiscent of the 1990s.
  • (9) This paper aims at demonstrating a currently beleaguered assumption: the central importance, the continuing vitality, and the appropriate complexity of Freud's theory of the drives and of his idea of the primacy of the body ego.
  • (10) The former Arsenal player has appeared an increasingly beleaguered figure and was known to have felt let down by Villa’s failure to sign any players during January’s transfer window , when the team were screaming out for fresh faces.
  • (11) While Labour fights to keep its coalition of BME voters and left-leaning liberals intact, the Conservatives’ priority appears to be to hold on to the seats they won in 2010 and maybe take one seat from Labour and a couple from the beleaguered Liberal Democrats in south-west London.
  • (12) The beleaguered security forces he contends were sidelined in favour of militias after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 are now, he says, starting to "slowly return to life".
  • (13) They are China's most beleaguered ethnic group – feared, misunderstood and economically marginalised.
  • (14) Some politicians have already warned that the ECB’s move, which cheered beleaguered southern European governments with large debts and high unemployment, will increase costs for German holidaymakers heading for popular destinations in the Caribbean and far east.
  • (15) Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
  • (16) More specifically, the violence is very bad news for Egypt's beleaguered Coptic minority – the ancient Christian community that makes up between 10 and 15% of a population of 82 million, and is by far the largest Christian community in the region.
  • (17) The ratings agency Standard & Poor's responded to the rescue announcement by cutting Bear Stearns's credit rating to BBB - the second-lowest investment grade - putting more pressure on its beleaguered stock.
  • (18) The government has given a beleaguered rail company permission to introduce an emergency timetable allowing it to cancel another 350 trains a day, it has been claimed.
  • (19) So what can beleaguered British workers do to close the rapidly expanding gap between their earnings and the overall cost of living?
  • (20) Mélenchon’s popularity is running level with the beleaguered, scandal-hit Fillon in some polls, higher in others.

Vex


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To to/s back and forth; to agitate; to disquiet.
  • (v. t.) To make angry or annoyed by little provocations; to irritate; to plague; to torment; to harass; to afflict; to trouble; to tease.
  • (v. t.) To twist; to weave.
  • (v. i.) To be irritated; to fret.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) De Boer's successor's first tasks will be to keep the US aboard the negotiations and to clear up the vexed question of the legal status of the Copenhagen accord , the deal struck at Copenhagen by a small group but not endorsed by a majority of countries.
  • (2) There is also the vexed question of what should be the legal form of any Paris agreement, a subject likely to keep negotiators up late into the night at the conference, and some anxiety among the hosts over whether the text of a deal can be formulated in due time.
  • (3) But the bigger question, the one that has vexed historians, biographers and holocaust experts for eight decades, is why she was there.
  • (4) Cs (2 mM) reduced diastolic depolarization (DD) at different [Ca]O and in 10.8 mM [Ca]O revealed an oscillatory potential (VOS) and the decay of a prolonged depolarization (Vex).
  • (5) The past few days have been vexing ones for reporting guidelines, voluntary or legal.
  • (6) The present data also highlighted the vexed relationship between stress and seizure control, which needs to be further investigated.
  • (7) Another vexed national question in the coming months will be this one: who is the most worthy winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
  • (8) Delivery of monoclonal antibodies to solid tumors is a vexing problem that must be solved if these antibodies are to realize their promise in therapy.
  • (9) Pathologists without considerable experience in the diagnosis of bone tumors find this question especially vexing.
  • (10) Caffeine (5 mM) abolishes Vos and Ios and increases Vex and Iex (as DOXO does), and adding DOXO slightly increased Vex and Iex.
  • (11) Posttraumatic joint stiffness is particularly vexing in the small joints.
  • (12) In this spirit, a vignette is offered from a clinical area in which questions of "health" and "illness" are particularly vexing at present.
  • (13) Some might argue that our eyes weren't quite on the ball back in '89: never mind the cataclysmic political upheaval in eastern Europe – the results of which still echo around the world – let's devote ourselves to a page concerned with vexed questions such as: why is water wet?
  • (14) The draft provides scant details on the vexed subject of accountability for emission reduction programmes.
  • (15) Nowhere was the commission’s balancing act more finely weighted than on the vexed question of bioenergy, which Cañete admitted was “a clear problem”.
  • (16) The top Chinese negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said there was also a possibility of advances on the vexed issued of transparency – how to monitor, report and verify each nation's emissions to ensure they are honouring their pledges.
  • (17) But now it’s Isis who are the insurgents,” leaving the peshmerga with the vexing challenge of defending and holding territory.
  • (18) On the vexed issue of longer term finance, the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi presented an offer to reduce developing country demands by 75% to $100bn a year from 2020, in return for guarantees of how the money would be distributed.
  • (19) Discussed here are some contours of the vexing problem of adequate minority participation in the health professions and a brief discussion of some programs that appear to be working.
  • (20) After the creed and some Benjamin Britten, and a blessing and a long round of applause, the man charged with holding together the fractious global Anglican communion as it struggles with the vexed issues of women bishops and same-sex marriage processed out of the cathedral and into the bitterly cold spring afternoon.

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