What's the difference between check and refrain?

Check


Definition:

  • (n.) A word of warning denoting that the king is in danger; such a menace of a player's king by an adversary's move as would, if it were any other piece, expose it to immediate capture. A king so menaced is said to be in check, and must be made safe at the next move.
  • (n.) A condition of interrupted or impeded progress; arrest; stop; delay; as, to hold an enemy in check.
  • (n.) Whatever arrests progress, or limits action; an obstacle, guard, restraint, or rebuff.
  • (n.) A mark, certificate, or token, by which, errors may be prevented, or a thing or person may be identified; as, checks placed against items in an account; a check given for baggage; a return check on a railroad.
  • (n.) A written order directing a bank or banker to pay money as therein stated. See Bank check, below.
  • (n.) A woven or painted design in squares resembling the patten of a checkerboard; one of the squares of such a design; also, cloth having such a figure.
  • (n.) The forsaking by a hawk of its proper game to follow other birds.
  • (n.) Small chick or crack.
  • (v. t.) To make a move which puts an adversary's piece, esp. his king, in check; to put in check.
  • (v. t.) To put a sudden restraint upon; to stop temporarily; to hinder; to repress; to curb.
  • (v. t.) To verify, to guard, to make secure, by means of a mark, token, or other check; to distinguish by a check; to put a mark against (an item) after comparing with an original or a counterpart in order to secure accuracy; as, to check an account; to check baggage.
  • (v. t.) To chide, rebuke, or reprove.
  • (v. t.) To slack or ease off, as a brace which is too stiffly extended.
  • (v. t.) To make checks or chinks in; to cause to crack; as, the sun checks timber.
  • (v. i.) To make a stop; to pause; -- with at.
  • (v. i.) To clash or interfere.
  • (v. i.) To act as a curb or restraint.
  • (v. i.) To crack or gape open, as wood in drying; or to crack in small checks, as varnish, paint, etc.
  • (v. i.) To turn, when in pursuit of proper game, and fly after other birds.
  • (a.) Checkered; designed in checks.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If the method was taken into routine use in a diagnostic laboratory, the persistence of reverse passive haemagglutination reactions would enable grouping results to be checked for quality control purposes.
  • (2) 119 representatives of this population were checked in their sexual contacts; of these, 13 persons proved to be infected with HIV.
  • (3) In 14 of the patients the imaging results were checked against the histological findings of a subsequent thymectomy, which revealed four thymomas and (with the exception of one normal thymus) hyperplastic changes in all the others.
  • (4) The results indicated that 48% of the sample either regularly checked their own skin or had it checked by another person (such as a spouse), and 17% had been screened by a general practitioner in the preceding 12 months.
  • (5) The government has blamed a clumsily worded press release for the furore, denying there would be random checks of the public.
  • (6) Photosynthetic activity of the cells was checked by placing the cell evenly illuminated in a (14)CO(2) atmosphere.
  • (7) The system of automated diagnosis makes it possible to significantly increase the quality and efficacy of wide-scale prophylactic check-ups of the population.
  • (8) I'll admit to not having realised that more than £100bn would be committed to Trident – I half-remembered reading that it would cost £20bn, so went online, only to discover that the higher figure checks out .
  • (9) After a four-week period on a placebo, hypertensive smokers were treated with slow-release nicardipine 40 mg twice daily for six months and were checked at the end of the placebo period, after the first dose of nicardipine and at the end of six months of therapy.
  • (10) Adverse events and life status were checked at regular intervals.
  • (11) His bracelets and his hair, neatly gathered in a colourful elasticated band, contrast with his unflashy day-to-day uniform of checked shirts, jeans or cheap chinos and trainers.
  • (12) Other details showed the wrong patient undergoing a heart procedure, and the wrong patient given an invasive colonoscopy to check their bowel.
  • (13) Also remember that each time you apply for a loan your credit record is checked, which will leave a footprint of the search.
  • (14) Check out the latest bill from Russia's parliament, the Duma: its aim is to ban the "unnecessary" usage of foreign words (in cases where there is a pre-existing Russian counterpart).
  • (15) Once outside the body they can be purified, expanded in culture, and checked via genome sequencing to ensure the editing has been successful.
  • (16) Indeed, the geographical nature of the division also keeps a check on the club's carbon footprint – Dartford rarely have to travel far outside the M25, with the trips to Bognor Regis and Margate about as distant as they get.
  • (17) No sick or dead monkeys were found in all the forests checked around Entebbe area during the epizootic.
  • (18) I tweet, check Facebook, chat with friends, keep in touch with colleagues, check in using Foursquare, use it to check work emails from home and organise notes using Evernote.
  • (19) At the centre of the Zyed and Bouna deaths is the continuing issue of police controls, stop and searches and identity checks.
  • (20) And all senior management will be required to drive Toyota vehicles and check where the problems lie.

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.