What's the difference between boredom and ennui?

Boredom


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being bored, or pestered; a state of ennui.
  • (n.) The realm of bores; bores, collectively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I used it primarily as a social lubricant but also to alleviate boredom, stress and loneliness.
  • (2) In a series of analyses guided by intuitive hypotheses, the Smith and Ellsworth theoretical approach, and a relatively unconstrained, open-ended exploration of the data, the situations were found to vary with respect to the emotions of pride, jealousy or envy, pride in the other, boredom, and happiness.
  • (3) We should stop the importation of these birds which are sold as commodities and endure lives of boredom in cages.
  • (4) Is boredom, then, one of the risks associated with great art?
  • (5) It's why he wages his own one-man war in the cinema against boredom: you can experience many things watching his films, but you will never complain of longueurs.
  • (6) Brando directed once - on One-Eyed Jacks (1959) - before boredom and sourness took over, but seldom had the patience, the stamina or the courage to be master of his own fate.
  • (7) It was concluded that ACTH 4-10 counteracts the usual decay in performance as a function of time-on-task due to increasing boredom and mental fatigue.
  • (8) The Boredom Susceptibility subscale of the SSS correlated significantly with the number of sexual partners.
  • (9) One detainee I spoke to told me of racist taunting and abuse by guards, and boredom.
  • (10) Now, the Estonian architecture studio Salto has built an equally inventive solution to the boredom of the morning commute – a 51m (170ft) -long trampoline, so that you can bounce to your destination .
  • (11) These include Paul Helleu hard at work, his new young wife apparently asleep out of boredom in the background.
  • (12) Correlations between partners in the control couples were higher than those between partners in the dysfunctional couples on the SSS Total and Boredom Susceptibility scales, which replicated previous findings.
  • (13) He works the levers of public approval with consummate skill, yet can never quite conceal his slight boredom at how easy it is.
  • (14) The players complain of boredom, and yet don't appear to be able to apply themselves and concentrate.
  • (15) Beginning to feel the first prickles of boredom, I thought of young Nathan, for whom Minecraft was life, until it wasn't.
  • (16) Abnormal eating behaviors such as pica or coprophagy are usually caused by a dietary imbalance or boredom.
  • (17) , who grew his tache in 2010 because of “self-employed procrastination” ie boredom, but is reluctant to shave his off because it would make him look younger.
  • (18) What's staggering is that boredom still has such a wholesome, desirable image.
  • (19) What I actually did was marry the mind-numbing tedium of a second-rate reality show, with the plodding boredom of a sub-standard pub quiz.
  • (20) Responses to subjective questionnaires showed significant increases in boredom for both groups.

Ennui


Definition:

  • (n.) A feeling of weariness and disgust; dullness and languor of spirits, arising from satiety or want of interest; tedium.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But what they take for a witticism might very well be true; most of Ellis's novels tell more or less the same story, about the same alienated ennui, and maybe they really are nothing more than the fictionalised diaries of an unremarkably unhappy man.
  • (2) Best of the bunch is 2006’s Tempbot , which beautifully satirises the spirit-crushing ennui of office environments by imagining a robot struggling to connect with homo sapiens co-workers who often seem as bereft of humanity as he is.
  • (3) It is important that the spirit of rainbow nation is extracted from the ennui of an increasingly jaded and complacent African National Congress, which, as with so many post-liberation ruling parties, is in danger of losing its moral compass.
  • (4) Nonetheless, the utilitarian fiction of Mr Fairweather and His Family was a superb piece of socially useful work I treasure to this day and I remain eternally grateful to its titular and nonexistent, ennui-ridden antihero Mr Fairweather, the Josef K of prescriptive childcare literature, for normalising my early years.
  • (5) They have turned mealtimes into the focus of every ounce of existential angst and middle-class ennui they can muster.
  • (6) Allen became famous only four years ago, yet already she has the ennui of a jaded veteran.
  • (7) Paras Anand, head of European equities at Fidelity Worldwide Investment The ECB’s strategy has as many shortcomings as potential benefits and it is hard not to feel a sense of, if not disappointment, then ennui at today’s announcement.
  • (8) But then there was always the "faceless record button", and the fear of ennui.
  • (9) If the films are extended games of he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not between glamorous stars (including Marcello Mastroianni , Jeanne Moreau and Alain Delon ), they also all share a sense of ennui and drift.
  • (10) Instead a combination of ennui at the ease of the group, added to fatigued resignation about England’s prospects when they get to France, conspired to rob Roy Hodgson of what should have been a moment of quiet triumph.
  • (11) Also showing will be Youth, an English-language drama directed by Paolo Sorrentino , featuring Michael Caine as an ageing composer plagued by ennui.
  • (12) And another example of Apple Maps inspired existential ennui: @ guardian It's decided the small town I live in is actually on a tiny deserted island 10 km west of here #iOS6maps — Tsana Dolichva (@Tsana_D) September 20, 2012 We'll be updating this blogpost as we receive further examples.
  • (13) She details whales banging their heads against their tanks and grinding their teeth on the walls, floors and bars until their teeth break or are worn to the pulp, allegedly because of boredom, frustration and ennui.
  • (14) Too many explosions, searching dead bodies for intelligence, hours of ennui and minutes of terror, lots of blood, holding the dying, all this and more had taken a toll.
  • (15) Occasionally we did so, although we often stumbled, as if out of ennui, against lesser sides.
  • (16) The opening sequence of Glue captures this ennui in unsettling, semi-hallucinatory fashion.
  • (17) Muscular and psychological rigidity, weariness, ennui and anhedonia may be the only clues to the presence of alexithymia.
  • (18) The effect is to induce a terrible ennui, a defeatist sense that, no matter how much evidence there is that something is unacceptable, we accept it anyway.
  • (19) The collection of sullen Keanu Reeves models is the work of Japanese company idk: "a remarkable instance of 3D mini ennui moving to the mass market," as 3Ders put it.
  • (20) And in those tiny moments of rest between the ennui of shadow cabinet meetings, there's a helpful spin doctor who can press a promotional copy of the Sun into your hands."