What's the difference between cling and fling?

Cling


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To adhere closely; to stick; to hold fast, especially by twining round or embracing; as, the tendril of a vine clings to its support; -- usually followed by to or together.
  • (v. t.) To cause to adhere to, especially by twining round or embracing.
  • (v. t.) To make to dry up or wither.
  • (n.) Adherence; attachment; devotion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The first stop in this arid place of poor farms and orchards clinging to the dry soil is Rafah, cut off by the border from its Palestinian counterpart.
  • (2) Feminism sometimes clings too hard to a sense of identity that always equates "female" with "underdog".
  • (3) Everton head to Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday but whether Roberto Martínez clings on beyond that game is open to doubt.
  • (4) Their families are said be be distraught at the news and have been clinging to the hope their daughters would want to come home.
  • (5) Her husband, a government official, went straight back to work after being rescued from the roof of the town hall, where he survived by clinging on to the perimeter fence while 70 of his colleagues drowned.
  • (6) It's just Boris being Boris, we say, as if life were just one extended episode of Have I Got News for You Alternatively, there is the scenario remainers cling to.
  • (7) Although it remains unclear why he chose to place the muddled woman in a kitchen – clinging to her mug and surrounded by children's toys – as opposed to say, in a laboratory or a truck, he claims all the words were authentically spoken by "women in dozens of focus groups around the country", prior to being stitched together in this latest triumph for the fashionable, verbatim school of drama.
  • (8) Theresa May signals support for UK-EU membership deal Read more On Dave went, clinging to the inverse principle that the less you have to say, the more time you should spend saying it.
  • (9) Obama said then: They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
  • (10) From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was a character but that world was riddled with half-cut, doped-up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.
  • (11) As I type I can smell the nauseating scent of death that clings to me still.
  • (12) An orderly process of dealing with asylum claims at the earliest point would be infinitely preferable to desperate families laying siege to central European railway stations, risking their lives clinging on to vehicles at Calais or suffocating in vehicles transporting them across borders.
  • (13) Arsenal are clinging to the hope that, like Olivier Giroud, who returned as a goal-scoring substitute in the 2-1 loss to United weeks ahead of schedule after fracturing his tibia in late August, Wilshere could yet surprise people and make a speedy recovery.
  • (14) That Russian meeting appears to have been the key to Milosevic's surrender of power as Ivanov informed him that he would have no support from Moscow if he attempted to cling on.
  • (15) But it may help steer a few more people away from Starbucks in the direction of Costa or one of those small independent coffee shops, book shops, grocers (etc, etc) whom we should cherish while they cling on in the face of unfair competition.
  • (16) The union claims Four Seasons, the UK's second largest care home provider, is also "clinging on by its fingernails".
  • (17) Others are said to be clinging on to the idea that Ukip remains a convenient means of taking votes from the Tories (witness the surreally complacent words of the Labour frontbencher Angela Eagle: “I’m not as worried as some might be about Ukip’s appeal to Labour voters.
  • (18) Hadlow, the controller of BBC2 since 2008 and BBC4 before that, is engaging company with a frustrating tendency to cling to the fence, at least in public.
  • (19) They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love: illusions.
  • (20) The only effect on postnatal development of the central nervous system (CNS) was a small transient change in neuromotor clinging ability of female offspring.

Fling


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To cast, send, to throw from the hand; to hurl; to dart; to emit with violence as if thrown from the hand; as, to fing a stone into the pond.
  • (v. t.) To shed forth; to emit; to scatter.
  • (v. t.) To throw; to hurl; to throw off or down; to prostrate; hence, to baffle; to defeat; as, to fling a party in litigation.
  • (v. i.) To throw; to wince; to flounce; as, the horse began to kick and fling.
  • (v. i.) To cast in the teeth; to utter abusive language; to sneer; as, the scold began to flout and fling.
  • (v. i.) To throw one's self in a violent or hasty manner; to rush or spring with violence or haste.
  • (n.) A cast from the hand; a throw; also, a flounce; a kick; as, the fling of a horse.
  • (n.) A severe or contemptuous remark; an expression of sarcastic scorn; a gibe; a sarcasm.
  • (n.) A kind of dance; as, the Highland fling.
  • (n.) A trifing matter; an object of contempt.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Neither of us are rampant or militant or any of those other descriptors anti-feminists fling about to scare those who stand up for their rights.
  • (2) He brushes past Felipe Melo and flings himself to the floor.
  • (3) If anyone in Macclesfield wants, for a small fee, I will come round to your house, lift the pesky varmint out of the bath with finger and thumb and fling it out of the window.
  • (4) You can see why retailers do everything in their power to lure them in, including flinging open shop doors.
  • (5) Helen aka helenlhelen I became pregnant after an ill-advised fling with a much older man.
  • (6) The kid isn’t feeding a penguin; he’s just flinging fish fingers on to the floor.
  • (7) At one point she had a bodyguard who would take her to the bank to deposit her takings.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Knight’s second-place depiction of a highland fling.
  • (8) Djokovic, though flings his entire corporeal into a forehand that near enough wins the point, and then forces Nadal to save a break point.
  • (9) I know someone whose entire circle of friends consists of ex-flings.
  • (10) Meanwhile in the American League... Steve Busfield (@Busfield) Benches clear in Detroit as Martinez and Balfour fling expletives but no punches thrown.
  • (11) It's a shame he can't just ramble on about his obsessions onscreen, flinging himself from point to point.
  • (12) [But] it does make me chuckle a little bit when Bernie flings around the word ‘revolution’.
  • (13) Gerrard flings over another free kick, much like the ones Liverpool scored from, but it evades everyone at the far post, and drifts away.
  • (14) The visitors might have been spurred into a riposte by a sense of injustice that Branislav Ivanovic was not penalised for going to ground too easily in first-half stoppage time, but by the time Allardyce reacted to fling on Song and Diafra Sakho just before the hour, a salvage mission was unlikely.
  • (15) Costa has managed only one goal in six Premier League appearances – he had scored eight at the corresponding stage last term – and has now completed a three-match suspension having been banned retrospectively for flinging an arm at Laurent Koscielny during the victory over Arsenal last month.
  • (16) After Tony and his shiny head did the dirty with Tracy Barlow, the goddess of pure evil, Liz went straight into a rebound fling with Dan, a man so slimy he glistens.
  • (17) Cahill and Emerson tangled in the last minute, the Corinthians player appearing to fling out an arm to provoke a reaction, then feigning agony after the centre-half had flicked out his shin in riposte.
  • (18) Once in power, relations between the two soured, with stories of Brown flinging telephones across his office in frustration.
  • (19) We had canisters of it with lumps in – and a catapult to fling it.
  • (20) He is flinging canvases around as though they were sacks of coal.