What's the difference between lethe and oblivion?

Lethe


Definition:

  • (n.) Death.
  • (n.) A river of Hades whose waters when drunk caused forgetfulness of the past.
  • (n.) Oblivion; a draught of oblivion; forgetfulness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Facebook Twitter Pinterest World-weary pilgrims make their way to the Greek river of forgetfulness in John Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s ‘The Waters of Lethe’ (1880).
  • (2) The Zero Theorem is a Borgesian fable set in a dystopian future world, where a corporate drone called Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) is futilely attempting – via an elaborately conceived equation-cum-video game – to ensure his data equals zero, as well as conducting an online love affair with a woman called Bainsley (Mélanie Thierry).
  • (3) Waltz plays a mysterious functionary called Qohen Leth, who spends his days attempting to solve the "zero theorem" through the data processing apparatus installed in his ruinous house.
  • (4) Gilliam's views were echoed by actor David Thewlis, who plays Leth's boss in the film.

Oblivion


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of forgetting, or the state of being forgotten; cessation of remembrance; forgetfulness.
  • (n.) Official ignoring of offenses; amnesty, or general pardon; as, an act of oblivion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) 'If you meet, you drink …' Thus introduced to intoxicating liquors under auspices both secular and sacred, the offering of alms for oblivion I took to be the custom of the country in which I had been born.
  • (2) What publicity the chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat could attract outside his homeland was only ever condemnatory, and his political career, barely begun, appeared on the verge of oblivion.
  • (3) We aren't surprised that the Romans had nothing to say about, say, the nearby Avebury stone circle, because it's far less manifest than Stonehenge – and by extension, the oblivion of time that blankets scores of British Neolithic and bronze age sites is in keeping with our current ignorance: to this day, so few people visit them that their enigmatic character is itself underimagined.
  • (4) We would be prevented from doing so; we are prevented from doing so.” Describing the situation as agonising, she said: “Whether you are a Syrian NGO [non-governmental organisation] on the frontline in eastern Aleppo being bombed into oblivion, or a UN worker sitting in Damascus or accompanying convoys across conflict lines, we are all really taking risks and being mentally pummelled by some of the positions in which we are put.” The deteriorating situation in Syria and continual bombardment of eastern Aleppo has raised the political stakes to new heights in recent days, with Russia being directly and repeatedly accused of war crimes because of its support for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
  • (5) Admittedly, there has been a bit of sour grapes in the English response to the success of Dempsey et al, and no doubt we will be treading those grapes into wine and drinking ourselves into oblivion if Team USA get much further – they are, as today's typically excitable NY Daily News front page informs us, now just "four wins from glory" .
  • (6) Sunday sunshine saw dips for films right across the market, including for Oblivion, but the headline number remains robust.
  • (7) How would Moo sell business cards with your personal photos on them if they could be sued into oblivion should those photos turn out to infringe copyright?
  • (8) Unlike any other animal in this country - except, perhaps, the mole, whose condition is, if anything, even more opaque, and just as likely to be following its own chute to oblivion - the hedgehog has always been a symbol and embodiment of something subtle and tender in the landscape.
  • (9) That is the way to economic disaster and political oblivion.
  • (10) Oblivion was preferable.” Lu momentarily entertained the idea of the family administering the deadly syringe together.
  • (11) He denies charges of sodomy , which he described in court last month as "a vile and desperate attempt at character assassination" and a bid to consign him to political oblivion.
  • (12) He cautions though that "many wearable devices will have their five minutes of fame at shows like CES before disappearing into oblivion".
  • (13) Although Hartley's understanding of the central nervous system has long been superseded, his general ideas prefigure some aspects of contemporary neurophysiology and philosophy of mind and thus provide a further reason for rescuing his vibrationism from oblivion.
  • (14) As the government has been warned repeatedly, services such as libraries and roads will be cut almost to oblivion, even as the bar for receiving care is raised to the point where all but the most needy are excluded.
  • (15) Given this, it is of major strategic importance that this company not be allowed to slip in to oblivion."
  • (16) All that then remains will be a choice between the alternative routes to oblivion that Clegg has charted – absorption into the Conservative party or independent annihilation when Labour tells the floating voter, "If you want a Tory government, vote Liberal Democrat".
  • (17) It was consigned to oblivion in Flexner's plan, but survived.
  • (18) With Dido and Norah Jones ruling the album chart, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin selling plenty of DVDs, Duran Duran and Tears for Fears suddenly returning from oblivion and Franz Ferdinand achieving instant success, it looks as if the fifty-quid bloke is keeping the music business afloat.
  • (19) Turnbull has always been the “voters’ choice” candidate, the one the Liberal party might turn to if it were facing electoral oblivion, the candidate with broad appeal.
  • (20) A standalone online entertainment channel might as well be called Oblivion.

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