What's the difference between harm and mercy?

Harm


Definition:

  • (n.) Injury; hurt; damage; detriment; misfortune.
  • (n.) That which causes injury, damage, or loss.
  • (n.) To hurt; to injure; to damage; to wrong.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Chapman and the other "illegals" – sleeper agents without diplomatic cover – seem to have done little to harm American national security.
  • (2) Bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which are important components of the cell wall of gram-negative bacteria, induce a number of host responses both beneficial and harmful.
  • (3) Robert Francis QC's official report in February on the Mid Staffordshire care scandal, in which an estimated 400 to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily at Stafford hospital between 2005 and 2008, called for the NHS to make "zero harm" its objective.
  • (4) I realise now that the drug is far less harmful then I believed at the time.
  • (5) Irrespective of method, the suicide attempt was predominantly a psychotic act of young single people with chronic, severe disorders and considerable past parasuicide, in a setting of escalating self-harm.
  • (6) Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, People's Liberation Army's chief of the general staff Gen Fang Fenghui also warned that the US must be objective about tensions between China and Vietnam or risk harming relations between Washington and Beijing.
  • (7) Jails and prison populations are unique in the incidence of deliberate self-harm, but the phenomenon is not well understood.
  • (8) It’s been widely reported that black people are disproportionately harmed by the mortgage market.
  • (9) Repeat patients were more likely to threaten to harm others, have a diagnosis of adjustment disorder, conduct or oppositional disorder and be under the care of a child welfare agency.
  • (10) Considerations of different ways of obtaining informed consent, determining ways of minimizing harm, and justifications for violating the therapeutic obligation are discussed but found unsatisfactory in many respects.
  • (11) Judge John Burgess told the men that their intention was “to do great harm in a peaceful community”.
  • (12) Lack of transparency about the nature of the relationship between police and media also led to speculation and perceptions, whatever the facts, that caused "serious harm".
  • (13) The problem of the achondroplast arises when his surroundings, right from the start, reject his disorder, connoting it with destructive anxiety: this seriously harms the subject's physical image, making him an outcast.
  • (14) Religious efforts to address the issue have also been complicit in absolving men of their crimes, objectifying women and doing more harm than good with campaigns that blame women for the phenomenon.
  • (15) Both the observance of occupational limit-values for dusts and other harmful materials at the work place, which have effects on the respiration system, and the medical survey of workers with the use of special methods for examination of respiratory system are necessary.
  • (16) Changes in the fitness of harmful mutations may therefore impose a greater long-term disadvantage on asexual populations than those which are sexual.
  • (17) The possibility of being liable if an incompetent student becomes registered and causes harm is also discussed.
  • (18) Butler was convicted of grevious bodily harm and child cruelty, and sentenced to prison.
  • (19) Was the Dalkon Shield so harmful in the nulliparous woman?
  • (20) Education can increase compliance and sometimes modify harmful behavior.

Mercy


Definition:

  • (n.) Forbearance to inflict harm under circumstances of provocation, when one has the power to inflict it; compassionate treatment of an offender or adversary; clemency.
  • (n.) Compassionate treatment of the unfortunate and helpless; sometimes, favor, beneficence.
  • (n.) Disposition to exercise compassion or favor; pity; compassion; willingness to spare or to help.
  • (n.) A blessing regarded as a manifestation of compassion or favor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The law and justice minister, Anisul Huq, said the 73-year-old leader was hanged after he refused to seek mercy from the country’s president.
  • (2) But if May rushes headlong into a panicked triggering of article 50 without a clear idea of what she wants out of negotiations, she will have left us at the mercy of 27 countries who have heard little but table-thumping and empty threats from ministers.
  • (3) He called for care for the environment to be added to the seven spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Gospel that the faithful are asked to perform throughout the pope’s year of mercy in 2016.
  • (4) But Ruby Tweedie, another local resident, said: "There have been so many doubts about his guilt that it's only fair that the man, who has only a few months to live, should be shown mercy."
  • (5) Constant ribbing about his private life was compromising Deayton's position as the show's "holier-than-thou" host, who showed no mercy towards politicians or celebrities caught in a similar position, the corporation added.
  • (6) The 70-year-old describes a life of comfortable detachment from mainstream society, but with long periods in which he and his 74-year-old wife, Shin-yeol, are at the mercy of the elements.
  • (7) We're kind of at Mother Nature's mercy at this point," said Tom Kruschke, another fire department spokesman .
  • (8) Without him, we were at the mercy of increasingly nervous investors, and our Hollywood film-making future hung in the balance.
  • (9) Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies.
  • (10) The mayor is a good person, but no one invited him, certainly not officially … The pope was furious.” While the prank provided fodder to critics of the mayor, it also underscored a more serious issue between the Vatican and Rome just a few months ahead of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December.
  • (11) The only mercy was they would have known little about it.
  • (12) After Hollande spent two hours on French radio in a patent relaunch of his presidency, a film producer announced that a biopic of Trierweiler’s revenge memoir, Merci Pour Ce Moment (Thank You For This Moment), is now in the works.
  • (13) Hunt replied: "Merci hopefully when consultation over we can have coffee like old days!"
  • (14) "The legal system has lost all sense of mercy and justice and it has been replaced with punitiveness and vindictiveness," Stinebrickner-Kauffman told Mail Online .
  • (15) If Whittingdale had any honour, any mercy, and any basic human decency, he would murder David Attenborough himself today, in his bed, to spare him any further suffering.
  • (16) It was not something that was talked about.” Thomson added: “It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised I quite simply couldn’t escape – because he was stronger than me, and there was no sense even initially of any sexual desire from him, which I suppose, looking back, again I find odd.” The MP said she had felt “absolutely numbed” and ashamed but told no one about the incident.
  • (17) Several survivors and family members of the victims who were flown to the US testified this week , and one cursed Bales for attacking villagers as some slept and others screamed for mercy.
  • (18) This meant that if the rebels started abusing people, the Misca would withdraw, leaving the civilian population at their mercy.
  • (19) Sitting in a side street listening to the sound of loud blasts and gunfire emanating from Nariman House, Rakash Bhaud, the local leader of the far-right Hindu party Shiv Sena, blamed the central government for the failures that, he said, had left them at the mercy of Pakistan-backed terrorists.
  • (20) More emphasis on mercy is needed in this case, surely, and less on killing.