What's the difference between desist and refrain?

Desist


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To cease to proceed or act; to stop; to forbear; -- often with from.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The resolution also opens the door for other bodies, such as the European Union and the International Criminal Court, to intensify their pressure on Israel to desist from its illegal practices on the West Bank and its war crimes in Gaza.
  • (2) We suspect that this hazard is more prevalent than its scarcity in the literature would suggest and that potential for unintended injury should be a prominent factor in the decision to proceed or desist with resection of a large neuroblastoma.
  • (3) Manchester United manager Ed Woodward is reported to have sent Chelsea a "terse" letter, warning them to cease and desist in their efforts to sign Wayne Rooney .
  • (4) Functions for the probability of feeding success and desistance over time were derived using data from observations on 300 mosquitoes.
  • (5) Last week the service pleaded with the public to desist from killing wild animals and instead contact the nearest office of the service.
  • (6) The agency’s ability to mute the proceedings was a surprise to Pohl, who issued a cease-and-desist order .
  • (7) He also told those briefing against Ed Miliband to desist, saying they should "get over it" and realise they had lost the Labour leadership election.
  • (8) Similar 22-kilohertz vocalizations occur in other social contexts, and in general they appear to be desist-contact signals.
  • (9) UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's office has said he is "gravely concerned" and has called on all sides to exercise the utmost restraint and desist from provocative actions: "He strongly condemns the excessive use of force by government security forces against unarmed protestors in the capital Sana'a, resulting in scores of people killed and many more injured."
  • (10) Britain has been an enthusiastic advocate of EU and US sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, and on Wednesday Cameron warned Putin that if he did not desist from supporting the rebels there would have financial and economic consequences for his country for many years to come.
  • (11) The authors desist from proposing genus and species names for the same reasons.
  • (12) Does a desisting doctor share responsibility, if he refers a patient to another doctor, who he knows would willingly perform prenatal diagnostics?
  • (13) Kaká came on to help Madrid seek it but Jupp Heynckes's side did not desist.
  • (14) The author points out the need for desisting from a scientific posture that switches the professional practice of Psychology into a mere diffusing of the Philosophy of Behavior--instead of resorting to technics aiming at modifying a behavior the patient feels as unpleasant or unadapted.
  • (15) So we have to be very firm and strong about the sanctions and say to Vladimir Putin: ‘What you are doing is unacceptable and it will have economic and financial consequences for many years to come if you do not desist with your behaviour’.” Speaking during a visit to West Sussex, Cameron underlined his intention to keep pressure on European Union partners to maintain the sanctions regime against Russia despite the ceasefire agreement.
  • (16) Houston’s city attorney, David Feldman, sent an email to Uber last month formally asking that it “cease and desist” from encouraging the public to write to officials demanding the introduction of the service.
  • (17) Two years later, in the summer of 2010, UberCab opened in San Francisco with just a small fleet of cars and a handful of employees, to be greeted by a cease-and-desist order from the city’s municipal transportation agency.
  • (18) Michael Gove may decry criticism of British leadership as an “out-of-touch elite”, but aerial photographs have proved that while the German defence had constructed concrete bunkers four deep, as late as 1916 old Oxford cavalrymen like Haig – drawn from class not qualification – desisted from resourcing trench warfare, insisting that a breakthrough was still possible.
  • (19) "It's a very serious situation - the message from the United States is Iran should cease and desist."
  • (20) Most of the time when we get issues like that coming to us we send out a desist notice and we say to the press, 'Look, there's an issue here, you may be in breach of the code, you got those photographs by harassment, you've got an issue to do with the privacy of that family, hold back' and they do.

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.