What's the difference between fear and timidity?

Fear


Definition:

  • (n.) A variant of Fere, a mate, a companion.
  • (n.) A painful emotion or passion excited by the expectation of evil, or the apprehension of impending danger; apprehension; anxiety; solicitude; alarm; dread.
  • (n.) Apprehension of incurring, or solicitude to avoid, God's wrath; the trembling and awful reverence felt toward the Supreme Belng.
  • (n.) Respectful reverence for men of authority or worth.
  • (n.) That which causes, or which is the object of, apprehension or alarm; source or occasion of terror; danger; dreadfulness.
  • (n.) To feel a painful apprehension of; to be afraid of; to consider or expect with emotion of alarm or solicitude.
  • (n.) To have a reverential awe of; to solicitous to avoid the displeasure of.
  • (n.) To be anxious or solicitous for.
  • (n.) To suspect; to doubt.
  • (n.) To affright; to terrify; to drive away or prevent approach of by fear.
  • (v. i.) To be in apprehension of evil; to be afraid; to feel anxiety on account of some expected evil.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (2) Since the start of this week, markets have been more cautious, with bond yields in Spain reaching their highest levels in four months on Tuesday amid concern about the scale of the austerity measures being imposed by the government and fears that the country might need a bailout.
  • (3) S&P – the only one of the three major agencies not to have stripped the UK of its coveted AAA status – said it had been surprised at the pick-up in activity during 2013 – a year that began with fears of a triple-dip recession.
  • (4) On Friday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry appeared to confirm those fears, telling reporters that the joint declaration, a deal negotiated by London and Beijing guaranteeing Hong Kong’s way of life for 50 years, “was a historical document that no longer had any practical significance”.
  • (5) I fear that I will have to go through another witch-hunt in order to apply for this benefit."
  • (6) And adding to this toxic mix, was the fear that the hung parliament would lead to a weak government.
  • (7) Ex-patients of a dental fear clinic were found to have significantly reduced, yet still high, dental anxiety scores in comparison with the pre-intervention scores.
  • (8) The hypothesis that the standard acoustic startle habituation paradigm contains the elements of Pavlovian fear conditioning was tested.
  • (9) Wharton feared that if his bill had not cleared the Commons on this occasion, it would have failed as there are only three sitting Fridays in the Commons next year when the legislation could be heard again should peers in the House of Lords successfully pass amendments.
  • (10) In a recent study, Orr and Lanzetta (1984) showed that the excitatory properties of fear facial expressions previously described (Lanzetta & Orr, 1981; Orr & Lanzetta, 1980) do not depend on associative mechanisms; even in the absence of reinforcement, fear faces intensify the emotional reaction to a previously conditioned stimulus and disrupt extinction of an acquired fear response.
  • (11) But that promise was beginning to startle the markets, which admire Monti’s appetite for austerity and fear the free spending and anti-European views of some Italian politicians.
  • (12) First, Dr Collins is fear-mongering when he says that ‘lives will be lost’ as a result of our calculations.
  • (13) Whether out of fear, indifference or a sense of impotence, the general population has learned to turn away, like commuters speeding by on the freeways to the suburbs, unseeingly passing over the squalor.
  • (14) Under pressure from many backbenchers, he has tightened planning controls on windfarms and pledged to "roll back" green subsidies on bills, leading to fears of dwindling support for the renewables industry.
  • (15) The countries have accused each other of cross-border attacks and there are fears the current tension could spark a wider war with Nkunda at its centre.
  • (16) They have not remotely done this so far, largely from fear of domestic political consequences that cannot be simply dismissed.
  • (17) Likud warned: “Peres will divide Jerusalem.” Arab states feared that his dream of a borderless Middle East spelled Israeli economic colonialism by stealth.
  • (18) One of the reasons for doing this study is to give a voice to women trapped in this epidemic,” said Dr Catherine Aiken, academic clinical lecturer in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology of the University of Cambridge, “and to bring to light that with all the virology, the vaccination and containment strategy and all the great things that people are doing, there is no voice for those women on the ground.” In a supplement to the study, the researchers have published some of the emails to Women on Web which reveal their fears.
  • (19) Some have been threatened and assaulted, while others’ homes have been ransacked, their families living in constant fear.
  • (20) The population prevalence of high dental fear was 115 fearful children per 1000 population (SE = 0.02).

Timidity


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being timid; timorousness; timidness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But my timid scrunch-face puts me so behind the curve that I might as well start training carrier pigeons.
  • (2) The Senate’s economic references committee accused Asic of missing or ignoring persistent signs of wrongdoing , characterising it as a “timid, hesitant regulator” that was too ready to uncritically accept assurances of a large institution that there were no grounds for intervention.
  • (3) Confirming that he would apply to be the next commissioner of the Met, he said: "I do not believe that the men and the women of the Met were timid, which is an accusation that has been levelled at us."
  • (4) When the police visited Rodger, whom Brown said deputies found “rather shy, timid and polite, well-spoken”, he played down any mental problems, telling police he was having difficulties with his social life and was planning to drop out of Santa Barbara City College.
  • (5) Like her bolder aunt Marine, the timid Maréchal-Le Pen complained that she suffered greatly from taunts at school that her grandad was a “fascist”.
  • (6) Photograph: AFP Saint Laurent became an object of immediate fascination: quiet, timid, with neatly parted schoolboy hair, anxious eyes lurking behind thick glasses and a frail body encased in a tight black suit.
  • (7) Free-born animals are very timid and show typical flight reactions.
  • (8) On the left, meanwhile, we feel our way towards a progressive alliance much more timidly, even when we know we’re sunk without it.
  • (9) It is suspicious of the SNP's rather timid version of independence, always being described as being about "the full powers of the parliament" – which is hardly a language or outlook for transformational change.
  • (10) This is an international problem demanding an international response, which so far has been desperately timid.
  • (11) Like Cameron, who is disappointing Eurosceptics with the timidity of his reform programme, the Swiss have been forced to accede to the realities of negotiating with a much bigger player.
  • (12) Endogenous depressives were found to have more pronounced changes on measures of dependence and timidity, but when change in mood state was partialed out only one of the dependence measures and timidity remained significant.
  • (13) This kind of contacts led to a social activation especially by schizophreniacs who had a lack of drive and seemed to be regressive, also caused an increase of drive and self-reliance by formerly timid, reserved girls.
  • (14) Romney also took several digs at Clinton’s foreign policy record, characterizing her time with the Obama administration as “timid”.
  • (15) Australia have a patchy squad, but its best elements are valuable and there had been no prospect that they would lose timidly.
  • (16) In opposition, we were too timid about making these bigger arguments.” He has calculated that government spending on housing benefit will be £120bn over the next five years, almost £50bn of which goes to private landlords.
  • (17) After only a few weeks in Chile, Pinochet is finding the charms of his native land - the compliant judges, the supportive generals, the timid politicians - are not what they used to be.
  • (18) The sanctions imposed by western states against Russia represent a timid hope that economic hardship will make Russians resent the regime and nudge them towards active protests.
  • (19) It is the bold agenda against the timid one; the visionaries against those who believe Labour can limp home with a few safe offerings that can fit safely on the back of a pledge card.
  • (20) The Liberal Democrats are undecided (Nick Clegg calls it "timid"), the crossbenchers unlikely to co-operate.

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