What's the difference between bless and boon?

Bless


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make or pronounce holy; to consecrate
  • (v. t.) To make happy, blithesome, or joyous; to confer prosperity or happiness upon; to grant divine favor to.
  • (v. t.) To express a wish or prayer for the happiness of; to invoke a blessing upon; -- applied to persons.
  • (v. t.) To invoke or confer beneficial attributes or qualities upon; to invoke or confer a blessing on, -- as on food.
  • (v. t.) To make the sign of the cross upon; to cross (one's self).
  • (v. t.) To guard; to keep; to protect.
  • (v. t.) To praise, or glorify; to extol for excellences.
  • (v. t.) To esteem or account happy; to felicitate.
  • (v. t.) To wave; to brandish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Some parents are blessed with a soul that lights up every time their little precious brings them a carefully crafted portrait or home-made greetings card.
  • (2) Attorneys for people caught on the US’s sprawling terrorism watchlists are expressing concern that the latest tactic by gun control advocates is blessing the legitimacy of a process they say threatens civil rights.
  • (3) I often remind him that after a test or a difficulty, blessings arrive.
  • (4) The move, first mooted two months ago, has been instigated with Jol's blessing and the new man was quick to insist he had spent "many hours" talking with his compatriot prior to accepting the position, even if his arrival effectively dilutes the manager's powerbase at the club.
  • (5) Unable to tap international markets, with its banks forced to rely on limited emergency funding provided on a week-by-week basis with the blessing of the ECB, it is fast running out of cash.
  • (6) The fact that property is unequally distributed so many people don't have blessed "property rights" gets airbrushed from the theory.
  • (7) Waitrose evokes strong opinions: from sniffy derision about the supermarket's perceived airs and graces to expressions of joy from middle-class incomers when their gentrified area is blessed with a branch.
  • (8) Photograph: Alex Lake for Observer Food Monthly Sky Sports’ managing director, Barney Francis, added: “We wish Gary all the very best as he returns to football with our blessing and begins his managerial career with Valencia.
  • (9) May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America.
  • (10) It is a sacred moment, and you feel blessed merely to have witnessed it.
  • (11) He’s gifted, a blessed young man with incredible hand speed and power.
  • (12) We felt blessed,” said Rebecca, pulling out another family picture in which a smiling Sarah leans her head against her mother’s shoulder, her younger siblings crowing around them.
  • (13) He often claimed that God had blessed him with the gift of the delayed hangover, one that kicked in only when he had done his day's work.
  • (14) While big businesses have enjoyed access to new couriers, Royal Mail itself eventually reached such a dire state that the Hooper report urged the government to rewrite the law to clarify that competition was a mixed blessing.
  • (15) Rate of progression of dementia was determined in 77 patients by repeated administration of the Blessed Dementia Scale (BDS).
  • (16) For whatever reason, the team is not gelling, despite substantial financial backing in the summer and the dressing room being blessed with a huge amount of quality.
  • (17) I wish him - with Caroline and the family - every blessing, and hope that the church of England and the Anglican communion will share my pleasure at this appointment and support him with prayer and love."
  • (18) Meena Raman of the Malaysia-based Third World Network told IPS: "Given the stance of the United States thus far in the Rio+20 negotiations, and the position they have taken in the climate change negotiations in Durban, it may perhaps be a blessing that President Obama is not coming to Rio."
  • (19) It was an unbelievable feeling,” Keating told Associated Press, adding she felt “totally blessed and loved” by the pope.
  • (20) Quite a number of people brought up in the emotional straitjackets of the English upper classes found blessed relief in the permission the Holy Spirit gave them to weep or laugh and gibber and faint in public.

Boon


Definition:

  • (n.) A prayer or petition.
  • (n.) That which is asked or granted as a benefit or favor; a gift; a benefaction; a grant; a present.
  • (n.) Good; prosperous; as, boon voyage.
  • (n.) Kind; bountiful; benign.
  • (n.) Gay; merry; jovial; convivial.
  • (n.) The woody portion flax, which is separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Fifty-three years on, he has a broad Yorkshire accent but still speaks fluent Urdu: a boon in a constituency containing places such as Bradford, where 20% of the population are of Pakistani heritage.
  • (2) Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which organises the Oscars, has said she’s “heartbroken” by the lack of diversity and that AMPAS will be taking “dramatic steps” to adjust the balance of its membership to include more black and ethnic minority film-makers.
  • (3) Public disillusionment with mainstream parties following the expenses scandal could prove a boon, she claims.
  • (4) He was saying something I couldn’t remember what it was," Boone said.
  • (5) A dodgy brown pitch is a boon to England, isn't it?
  • (6) The awards were announced by Rush and Thor star Chris Hemsworth and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs.
  • (7) Using the "paired-label" technique, described by Boone et al., approximatively 7.2.
  • (8) The shift out of agricultural jobs,” he writes, “while eventually a boon for virtually all of humanity, brought significant problems along the way.
  • (9) Representatives for the Academy didn’t immediately comment on Tuesday, but speaking to the New Yorker , Boone Isaacs said her initial feeling in the aftermath of the first best picture announcement was “horror”.
  • (10) The big change in Turkey has been seeing its turbulent past and physical location as a boon, rather than a bind, said Kalin.
  • (11) Apart from anything, there’s always been one or other or us going through major surgery.” Claire says having two new sisters has been a brilliant boon to her life.
  • (12) The Boon-Leigh procedure, involving condensation of a 6-chloro-5-nitropyrimidine (22) with an alpha-amino ketone (20 or 21) followed by reduction of the nitro group, cyclization, and L-glutamylation, led to the formation of 11-deazahomofolate (29) and its 10-methyl derivative (30).
  • (13) The molecular characterization of the first human cancer antigen recognized by CTL is now under way as outlined by Boon et al in this issue.
  • (14) Discussing the result, Martin Boon, of ICM Unlimited, said: “There is inevitably random variation between different polls, which generally falls within a ‘margin of error’ of plus or minus three points.
  • (15) But they are easy to miss amid the glut of MOR crooners – Nat King Cole, Pat Boone, Mel Torme, Frank Ifield yodeling his way through Hank Williams's Lovesick Blues – and the sound of the Joe Loss Orchestra.
  • (16) There is a case to be made against Trump that his populism is bullshit,” Favreau said, citing the nomination of billionaires and former Goldman Sachs executives to cabinet positions, which will be the wealthiest in US history, and moves to unravel the Dodd-Frank reform in a boon to Wall Street.
  • (17) In addition, community health centers create jobs and are a boon to local economies in communities that are often struggling.
  • (18) Disused rail lines may be reopened – or new ones commissioned – if the climate change that raises Britain's summer temperatures also proves a boon for domestic tourism.
  • (19) And they took him by each arm and by each leg and laid him down on the table and the fifth one strapped him in.” Neither Workman nor Boone could remember the name of the man who resisted.
  • (20) Clomiphene citrate has been a boon to womankind and deserves the confidence of both patient and physician: it is a drug with a record of utility and with but minor risks.