What's the difference between fierce and pierce?

Fierce


Definition:

  • (superl.) Furious; violent; unrestrained; impetuous; as, a fierce wind.
  • (superl.) Vehement in anger or cruelty; ready or eager to kill or injure; of a nature to inspire terror; ferocious.
  • (superl.) Excessively earnest, eager, or ardent.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Migrant voters are almost as numerous as current Ukip supporters but they are widely overlooked and risk being increasingly disaffected by mainstream politics and the fierce rhetoric around immigration caused partly by the rise of Ukip,” said Robert Ford from Manchester University, the report’s co-author.
  • (2) Yves was the vulnerable, suffering artist and Pierre the fiercely controlling protector: a man who, in Lespert's film, is painfully aware of his public image – "the pimp who's found his all-star hooker".
  • (3) Some business groups have been lobbying fiercely against the reform, though others support it.
  • (4) As Greece pleads with its eurozone creditors for more time in meeting its fiscal adjustment targets, Dombrovskis is a fierce champion of surgical austerity applied quickly and ruthlessly.
  • (5) Despite its dominance, the PAP continues to fiercely restrict freedom of assembly and speech.
  • (6) Recruitment has not returned to pre-credit crunch levels, and there is fierce competition for new jobs.
  • (7) And in Colorado the fiercely anti-immigration conservative and former presidential candidate Ted Tancredo was comfortably overcome by a more moderate former congressman, Bob Beauprez, in the primary to choose the Republican candidate for the state's governor.
  • (8) Andrea Dworkin, who has died aged 58, was a feminist who came to represent the fierce debate on pornography and sexual violence.
  • (9) In the past fortnight protesters have found themselves caught in the middle of fierce gun battles between regime forces and defected soldiers who have been guarding the main protest camp since March.
  • (10) The last of these come into force in 2014, and after fierce resistance from the larger operators, Kroes is not proposing any more price reductions.
  • (11) Thus in your own words you have said why it was utterly inappropriate for you to use the platform of a Pac hearing in this way.” He suggested that many professionals were “in despair at the lack of understanding and cheap haranguing which characterise your manner” after a series of hearings at which Hodge has led fierce interrogations of senior business figures and others.
  • (12) Allegations that British soldiers murdered insurgents and mutilated their bodies after a fierce firefight in Iraq were roundly rejected by an official inquiry, which also found that a number of prisoners were abused and that troops breached the Geneva convention.
  • (13) So there will no doubt be another fierce battle next year over this issue.
  • (14) There's something very earnest about the build up to this MLS Cup final, as if the battle on the field between Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake starts with a competition to see which team can "respect" the other one more fiercely.
  • (15) Cameron is caught between fierce opposition to reform on his own benches, Labour criticism of the bill, and the determination of his deputy Nick Clegg to press ahead with a reform that has been delayed for 100 years.
  • (16) Liverpool were restricted to shots from the edge of the area throughout the opening half, mainly from Alberto who went close with one curling effort and had fierce drive parried by the goalkeeper Mark Oxley.
  • (17) However, City sources said that SABMiller is likely to launch a fierce defence against a deal and could instead look to combine with Diageo , the British owner of Guinness and Johnnie Walker whisky.
  • (18) Tesco’s accounting scandal has led to concerns about the way the sector handles payments from suppliers for promoting products or hitting sales targets, and UK grocers are operating under fierce competition from discounters such as the German company Aldi which has reported a 65% rise in profits in the UK.
  • (19) Liverpool did not begin like a side who believed a top-four finish was beyond them and continued to apply fierce pressure.
  • (20) Sitting in the Khartoum restaurant as the fierce late-afternoon sun intrudes through the windows, Lubna dismisses the notion that western praise might be a drawback in a country like Sudan.

Pierce


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument.
  • (v. t.) To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.
  • (v. t.) Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery.
  • (v. i.) To enter; to penetrate; to make a way into or through something, as a pointed instrument does; -- used literally and figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At pH 7.0, reduction is complete after 6 to 10 h. These results together with an earlier study concerning the positions of the two most readily reduced bonds (Cornell J.S., and Pierce, J.G.
  • (2) Cook, who has postbox-red hair and a painful-looking piercing in his lower lip, was now on stage in discussion with four fellow YouTubers, all in their early 20s.
  • (3) Meanwhile the Brooklyn Nets, who have been dealing with nothing but bad news since the start of the regular season, will be without Paul Pierce for 2-4 weeks, also due to a right hand fracture.
  • (4) After properly fixing the vas deferens with a ring clamp, the surgeon pierces the scrotal skin, vas sheath, and vas deferens in the midline with a curved dissecting clamp held at a 45 degree angle from horizontal.
  • (5) The dorsal interosseous muscles gave off tendons which pierced the transverse laminae or passed deep to the transverse laminae, and attached to the bases of the proximal phalanges.
  • (6) Four patients received a subclavian intraaortic balloon pump, two were supported with a Novacor left ventricular assist system, three patients received Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist devices, and one patient received a Jarvik 7 total artificial heart.
  • (7) Lisbeth Salander is a violent and emotionally uncommunicative tattooed and much-pierced goth who grew up in care, and has had serious mental health issues.
  • (8) Ear-piercing techniques include needles, safety pins, sharpened studs, and self-piercing kits.
  • (9) The price G4S is paying amounts to 8.5 times of top-line earnings - "by no means cheap," said Seymour Pierce analyst Kevin Lapwood.
  • (10) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (11) This paper draws attention to tool marks in the area of pierced rib cartilage and considers the possibilities of their analysis.
  • (12) Fourteen patients were supported with a Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist device (left ventricular assist in seven, right ventricular assist in three, both in four); nine were supported with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, two with a Medtronic centrifugal left ventricular assist pump, one with biventricular Biomedicus pumps, and one with a Novacor left ventricular assist system.
  • (13) A scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of the mouthparts of Psoroptes cuniculi from rabbits and P. ovis from sheep established that they are identical in morphology and are adapted for surface feeding rather than piercing the epidermis.
  • (14) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (15) We stress the need for strict enforcement of correct sterilization procedures whenever needles are used to pierce skin.
  • (16) By stepping back from some of the more radical solutions suggested before the election – such as the complete separation of high street banks from "casino" investment banks proposed by business secretary Vince Cable – the commission left the banks "secretly quite pleased", according to Bruce Packard, banks analyst at Seymour Pierce.
  • (17) In 2013, actor Pierce Brosnan’s daughter, Charlotte, died from ovarian cancer.
  • (18) The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."
  • (19) The passage through Congress of legislation such as the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the racially significant disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine, and the Death in Custody Act , which introduces a federal record of deaths in police custody, have shown that incarceration – and perhaps incarceration alone – is able to pierce through the partisan gridlock of Washington.
  • (20) Benteke and the tireless Andreas Weimann take the plaudits for their four passes that pierced the Liverpool defence and saw the Austrian forward sweep home Benteke's exquisite back-heel.