What's the difference between discomfit and perplex?

Discomfit


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To scatter in fight; to put to rout; to defeat.
  • (v. t.) To break up and frustrate the plans of; to balk/ to throw into perplexity and dejection; to disconcert.
  • (a.) Discomfited; overthrown.
  • (n.) Rout; overthrow; discomfiture.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But the demise of white supremacy does not mean the end of white people, just of their supremacy; given the widespread conflation of the two by discomfited white people, perhaps we do need a month to teach us all the difference.
  • (2) (Of course, she was also perfectly aware of the feminist content, what it said about the disgusted-attracted-contemptuous male gaze, but she preferred the art to ask the questions, discomfit, not preach.)
  • (3) It has been just over two decades since genocide was last perpetrated on European soil, a discomfiting memory that has been largely buried in a continent now intent on stopping the arrival of escapees from more recent mass murder.
  • (4) In that discomfiting political situation, the party’s instinct is to fall back on the NHS.
  • (5) Cameron looked discomfited.” It fell to William Hague to defend the prime minister in the spin room.
  • (6) On 16 March 2012, the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge released two discomfiting documents from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
  • (7) ISS said it was understandable that Shell investors would feel “discomfited” by the significant volatility in global crude prices but added: “It is worth recognising, however, that the spot price today may be of very little value in assessing the strategic opportunity of a transaction whose benefits will be realised over decades.
  • (8) Its high-profile role fighting Isis in Iraq, Assad’s retention of control in Syria with the help of its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebel takeover in Yemen have all been deeply discomfiting for the Saudis.
  • (9) Just as Blatter was crushed by the banner headlines in his native Switzerland when the FBI swooped, so Platini will have been most discomfited by the front pages in a France.
  • (10) It was one of the tricks of Hoffman's elegantly cruel performance that when Freddie met his bloody end, the audience was likely to feel relieved and complicit; he was such a doggedly discomfiting presence, it was clear he could be stilled only by death.
  • (11) Most people would be discomfited to learn how detailed a reconstruction of their lives their mobile phone operator could produce if required – right down to a pretty good guess at when they have been speeding in their cars.
  • (12) For politicians, it can be “too discomfiting” to accept that contemporary culture is a significant contributor to the problem of emerging extremist views.
  • (13) Now that the eruption has taken place, we blunder in with our prescriptions on democracy, only mildly discomfited by the amount of our hardware that has facilitated the long history of oppression.
  • (14) In the UK, we are still slightly discomfited by the idea of baring all in a confessional essay, partly, one presumes, because we are restrained by a sort of cultural prudishness, but also because we do not wish to appear self-indulgent.
  • (15) Later, her memory of it would be a blur that left her with the discomfiting sense that, at least in some people's minds, the medicines were being given "for the greater good", to get the exhausted, frightened staff out more quickly, as there were too many patients who were immobile.
  • (16) His collaborations with Peter Gabriel reflected Gabriel's restless, discomfiting aesthetic just as well as the Floyd designs had chimed with their music: the artwork for his self-titled third solo album (aka Melt), for example, consisted of a single shot of Gabriel's face, apparently melting off his skull , something achieved by the simple expedient of smearing a still-developing Polaroid (a technique later known as Krimsography).
  • (17) There will be laughs, Shanbag emphasises – but Arpana will not shirk the unsettling side of All's Well , one of Shakespeare's most discomfiting plays , the ostensibly comic plot of which (a woman pursues the man she wants so doggedly that she ends up tricking him into bed) is at odds with its riddling, uncertain tone.
  • (18) The people who describe human beings in this way often have scores of pictures, including images obviously taken without consent that discomfited the subject.
  • (19) Those two dissenting members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), Rachel Brand and Elisebeth Collins Cook, both lawyers in the George W Bush administration, did not endorse bulk metadata collection so much as they were discomfited by the scope of their colleagues’ castigation of its legality, propriety and utility.
  • (20) But Arron is probably at his most discomfiting on the gathering darkness of Europe’s economics.

Perplex


Definition:

  • (a.) To involve; to entangle; to make intricate or complicated, and difficult to be unraveled or understood; as, to perplex one with doubts.
  • (a.) To embarrass; to puzzle; to distract; to bewilder; to confuse; to trouble with ambiguity, suspense, or anxiety.
  • (a.) To plague; to vex; to tormen.
  • (a.) Intricate; difficult.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Perplexed, from being absorbed into some undateable future world governed by an advanced technology whose capacities have to be learned as one reads.
  • (2) The sergeant, listening in, was perplexed: "We obviously have, because I can hear you on the radio.
  • (3) Whether FcR-mediated signaling and receptor-mediated signaling involved in NK activity share specific biochemical intermediates is not known, but the involvement of tyrosine kinase function in the latter means of cytotoxicity may provide novel avenues for understanding the biochemical basis of this perplexing cellular function.
  • (4) The arteriogram correctly localized the precise site of hemorrhage in this perplexing case, and a complex surgical problem was simplified.
  • (5) The trauma-ready practice must also be cognizant of the some-times perplexing legal and insurance issues with regard to preventing and treating sport-related injuries.
  • (6) According to Lukyanov, the Kremlin is “perplexed” by Trump because it’s not clear what his priorities are nor whether he can work with Congress to achieve them.
  • (7) While treatment of a young woman with a dysgerminoma of 1 ovary is a matter of perplexity, we believe that a unilateral operation should be limited to those women who desire above all earthly things to retain their childbearing capacity.
  • (8) The most perplexing issues in pediatric dentistry today are related to the management of patients.
  • (9) "It is perplexing and preposterous to hear human rights complaints from the US, where torture and kidnapping are legal in the 21st century."
  • (10) It was a wretched goal to concede and the unfortunate truth for Mignolet is that moment reminded us why many Liverpool supporters are perplexed he has been awarded a new five-year contract.
  • (11) Instead, when we meet her at the beginning of the series, Nyborg is more concerned with moving house – presumably supplying viewers with shots of a variety of stylish new light fittings and perplexing floor plans to obsess over – than a political party with which she is increasingly disillusioned.
  • (12) I was [looks perplexed]: ‘Where’s the fabulous Madonna ?’ But it was still deeply interesting just to shake this tiny little hand, and say ‘You’re real’, because in the 80s, these people lived on plinths, they never came down to Earth.” This encounter made Patterson realise that celebrity per se didn’t exist.
  • (13) The implementation of library orientation and bibliographic instruction in health sciences centers presents some interesting as well as perplexing problems.
  • (14) It is now shown that the perplexity may be due to the possibility that the coenzyme (NAD) required for UDPG-D activity, may be acting as a substrate for a second dehydrogenase, namely xanthine dehydrogenase, which may utilize NAD as its substrate.
  • (15) Management of the patient with tinnitus is an extremely perplexing problem.
  • (16) Paul Salveson, author of a new book on the future of the railways, Railpolitik , is equally perplexed.
  • (17) Prematurity is one of the most perplexing problems in perinatal care.
  • (18) If chemical weapons were used, the timing of the attack is perplexing, the inspector said.
  • (19) Perplexing findings of cortical somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP's) for determining the central sulcus during a craniotomy are reported in a case of brain tumor.
  • (20) As cellular and molecular approaches combine with physiologic techniques, new information will be available to address the clinical issues of luteal dysfunction which perplex us all.