What's the difference between burden and refrain?

Burden


Definition:

  • (n.) That which is borne or carried; a load.
  • (n.) That which is borne with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive.
  • (n.) The capacity of a vessel, or the weight of cargo that she will carry; as, a ship of a hundred tons burden.
  • (n.) The tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin.
  • (n.) The proportion of ore and flux to fuel, in the charge of a blast furnace.
  • (n.) A fixed quantity of certain commodities; as, a burden of gad steel, 120 pounds.
  • (n.) A birth.
  • (v. t.) To encumber with weight (literal or figurative); to lay a heavy load upon; to load.
  • (v. t.) To oppress with anything grievous or trying; to overload; as, to burden a nation with taxes.
  • (v. t.) To impose, as a load or burden; to lay or place as a burden (something heavy or objectionable).
  • (n.) The verse repeated in a song, or the return of the theme at the end of each stanza; the chorus; refrain. Hence: That which is often repeated or which is dwelt upon; the main topic; as, the burden of a prayer.
  • (n.) The drone of a bagpipe.
  • (n.) A club.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, recently proposed a bill that would ease the financial burden of prescription drugs on elderly Americans by allowing Medicare, the national social health insurance program, to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to keep prices down.
  • (2) Finally, before the advent of the third-party payment, operations were avoided because of the financial burden.
  • (3) However, civil society groups have raised concerns about the ethics of providing ‘climate loans’ which increase the country’s debt burden.
  • (4) The parasites were highly aggregated within the study community, with most people harbouring low burdens while a few individuals harboured very heavy burdens.
  • (5) Economic burdens for postmarketing research should be shared jointly by the research-oriented and generic drug companies.
  • (6) There is general agreement that suicides are likely to be undercounted, both for structural reasons (the burden-of-proof issue, the requirement that the coroner or medical examiner suspect the possibility of suicide) and for sociocultural reasons.
  • (7) The art Kennard produced formed the basis of his career, as he recounted later: “I studied as a painter, but after the events of 1968 I began to look for a form of expression that could bring art and politics together to a wider audience … I found that photography wasn’t as burdened with similar art historical associations.” The result was his STOP montage series.
  • (8) The analysis indicated a high cost burden for families in all disease categories studied, although a lack of uniformity in data presentation and in the variables studied prevented specific generalizations to be made about the numbers or characteristics of families with high costs.
  • (9) "Public servants did nothing to cause the slump but are being asked to bear an unfair share of the burden.
  • (10) The irony of this type of self-manipulation is that ultimately the child, or adult, finds himself again burdened by impotence, though it is the impotence of guilt rather than that of shame.
  • (11) The aim of the study was to find whether treatment would result in an improvement of cognition, of functioning in daily life, decrease of behavioural disturbances, and decrease in burden experienced by the carers.
  • (12) Lymph proliferative disorders with a high mitotic rate, and large tumor burden, regardless of histologic features, should be treated prophylactically against tumor lysis if regrowth between cycles occurs.
  • (13) These data indicate that, compared with animals at sea level, animals at altitude have an increased body burden of COHb and will attain the COHb level associated with the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for CO more quickly when breathing CO.
  • (14) Macro-epidemiology is concerned with the absolute and relative contributions of particular causes or diseases to the overall burden of ill-health in a population.
  • (15) Communicable diseases represent a considerable burden in terms of suffering and costs.
  • (16) This is indirect evidence suggesting that mercury from dental amalgam fillings may contribute to the body burden of mercury in the brain.
  • (17) The gender-specific kinship relationship of patients and their care providers has not generally been investigated in studies of caregiver burden and well-being.
  • (18) In predicting response to therapy, poor prognostic factors included large tumor burdens, advanced disease stage, and chemotherapy-resistant tumors.
  • (19) Radical postoperative irradiation (A) is burdened by 3 serious complications and a considerably higher amount of complaints.
  • (20) MMC and 5-FU did not show significant activity against large tumor burden, while a relatively good activity was detected in patients with minimal disease.

Refrain


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To hold back; to restrain; to keep within prescribed bounds; to curb; to govern.
  • (v. t.) To abstain from
  • (v. i.) To keep one's self from action or interference; to hold aloof; to forbear; to abstain.
  • (v.) The burden of a song; a phrase or verse which recurs at the end of each of the separate stanzas or divisions of a poetic composition.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In partial reshunting on the background of considerable improvement in hemodynamics and the general condition of the patient, one may refrain from carrying out an operation again and continue dynamik observation of the patient.
  • (2) The Kremlin has so far refrained from dealing with mounting anger against people from Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region, as well as migrant workers from central Asia, which has grown as the country's oil-fuelled economic boom has given way to the hardship of the global financial crisis.
  • (3) The son of the slain Afghan police commander (who is the husband of one of the killed pregnant woman and brother of the other) says that villagers refer to US Special Forces as the "American Taliban" and that he refrained from putting on a suicide belt and attacking US soldiers with it only because of the pleas of his grieving siblings.
  • (4) Last week he argued that properly primed immigrants will "see off the racists" - as if once blacks and Asians could conjugate their verbs properly and learn the date of the Battle of Agincourt, then racists would refrain from attacking them.
  • (5) But Rouhani can still use his position as the public face of the Islamic republic to defend Rezaian, which he has refrained from doing, at least so far.
  • (6) Both promiscuous and nonpromiscuous male homosexuals should refrain from giving blood.
  • (7) Nevertheless, because of the uncertain future of any type of implant, especially new, we have encouraged the patients to follow a careful postoperative management program and refrain from heavy activity during the first year.
  • (8) For reasons of comparison, animals were also trained in a delayed go no-go task in which visual cues instructed them to perform or refrain from an arm movement reaction to a subsequent trigger stimulus.
  • (9) And to a lesser extent in Wales ," has been a persistent refrain during the first decade in the life of the National Assembly.
  • (10) A professional technician is available for consultation on technical problems, but strictly refrains from intervening in the creative work proper.
  • (11) Alistair Burt, a Foreign Office minister, urged Libya "to respect the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, and on all sides to exercise restraint and refrain from violence".
  • (12) Nowadays, the management of the crises which accompany significant Life Events (such as birth, marriage, retirement, death...) within this new family-system, is refrained by the lack of "relays" which were previously provided by the "enlarged family".
  • (13) The latter responded with tear gas, despite orders to refrain from using chemicals against protesters.
  • (14) chi2-testing, was refrained from in view of the small number of interviewes.
  • (15) Results indicate that when the harm-doers apologized, as opposed to when they did not, the victim-subjects refrained from severe aggression against them.
  • (16) I will refrain on saying my thoughts on the National League and pitchers hitting, but all I'm saying here is that maybe it would have been more fun to see a David Oritz or Victor Martinez hitting there instead.
  • (17) If the assessment is that media coverage will be damaging, news organisations are requested to refrain from reporting.
  • (18) Refrain from detonating your little bomb,” one of the generals told the commander in charge of the test.
  • (19) Cue that familiar gloating refrain from Stoke fans when Arsenal are in town: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” they crooned.
  • (20) Media had been asked to refrain from reporting this for fear of further increasing the danger to him from his captors.