What's the difference between mercy and merry?

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.

Merry


Definition:

  • (superl.) Laughingly gay; overflowing with good humor and good spirits; jovial; inclined to laughter or play ; sportive.
  • (superl.) Cheerful; joyous; not sad; happy.
  • (superl.) Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight; as, / merry jest.
  • (n.) A kind of wild red cherry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I did a quick survey of friends' and neighbours' families and found 11 young people and three men in their 40s and 50s on this merry-go-round.
  • (2) The grotesque merry-go-round of more people selling fewer overpriced homes is in full swing.
  • (3) On hearing the Rolf Harris verdicts, I felt vengeful, like many, I expect – condemning this man who led the public a merry dance and enjoyed enormous success while perpetrating abuse.
  • (4) Steph Merry, head of marine renewables at the Renewable Energy Association, said last year that only the giant barrage made sense.
  • (5) Interesting that there should be so many applications who are, according to the Merry Hill store, of an “incredibly high” standard, and so soon after graduation.
  • (6) Dinner guests were serenaded by opera singer Renee Fleming, a triple-Grammy award-winning soprano, who sang Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and the Puccini aria O Mio Babbino Caro.
  • (7) Banks stopped lending almost overnight, and the Wilsons' property merry-go-round suddently started looking increasingly shaky.
  • (8) Merry Go 'Round was praised by Katy Perry and a song that Musgraves co-wrote, Undermine , was played on the TV series Nashville , shown in the UK on Channel 4.
  • (9) With the private sector now calling the tune on affordable housing, while hiding the score in a locked room, it’s not hard to see why the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, David Orr, recently told his members that developers are “leading local authorities on a merry dance”.
  • (10) Amid all the schadenfreude, it’s worth remembering that two years ago, Arsène Wenger and his merry men were similarly derided after suffering a comical opening day home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa, before going on to win eight and draw one of their next nine league matches.
  • (11) Allowing for the odd lapse – such as his terrible musical version of The Merry Wives of Windsor in 2006 – he has done much fine work.
  • (12) Interviewed about the cuts and the economic outlook on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday , Osborne looked grim and statesmanlike in repose – he has grown fleshier in office – but every time he began to speak his dimpled mouth formed a half-smile and his quick eyes were almost merry.
  • (13) A two-part German-South African co-production based on the bestselling Kate Mosse novel, it's a window-rattling potboiler bubbling with ancient religious conspiracies, comely medieval wenches, comely 21st-century academics, fogbanks of swirly past-times skulduggery, evil pharmaceutical CEOs in 10 denier tights, priapic chevaliers and, verily, a script that does dance a merry jig upon the very phizog of credibility.
  • (14) We decided we wanted to offer it to a young asylum seeker.” At the Paris parish of Saint Merry to which and her husband, Philippe, belong, Pépin had heard of the Welcome to France project run by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
  • (15) "And going on that IVF merry-go-round with all the drugs and the stress, given the limited return ..." We also need to confront our illusions about having a genetic child if we are going to put so much faith in medical solutions, he adds.
  • (16) The last time he quit, two years ago as general election coordinator, he told Miliband: “After nearly 30 years of this, I feel like I’ve seen the merry-go-round turn too many times.” Unite had hijacked the selection process for the candidate for West Falkirk in favour of Watson’s office manager, Karie Murphy.
  • (17) At 14 she was high jumping 1.80m, she'd broken Katharine Merry's schools record, there was no hiding after that.
  • (18) Outside, a more than faintly surreal urban beach scene in a June downpour: battered garden chairs and tables, dripping merry-go-round horse, Cinderella's pumpkin.
  • (19) Given the attackers have only released a slice of the 100 terabytes of information they claim to have, Sony and its workers are set for a not-so-merry Christmas.
  • (20) Smoke, drink and make merry On the other hand, the British war veteran Henry Allingham had wildly differing advice (though he agrees on the smoking, at least), putting his longevity down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women. "