What's the difference between miracle and wonder?

Miracle


Definition:

  • (n.) A wonder or wonderful thing.
  • (n.) Specifically: An event or effect contrary to the established constitution and course of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature; a supernatural event, or one transcending the ordinary laws by which the universe is governed.
  • (n.) A miracle play.
  • (n.) A story or legend abounding in miracles.
  • (v. t.) To make wonderful.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Here the miracle of the Lohans' baby was divinely ordained and fulfilled the entitlement of every woman to have a child.
  • (2) It is little wonder that his doctors have described him as a medical miracle.
  • (3) Westwood came within an inch of clawing back a shot with a firm, brave putt, but went to the 16th having to birdie his way to the clubhouse to pull off a minor miracle.
  • (4) Given a certain somebody gave millions of cancer sufferers false hope by insisting his seven Tour de France wins were the result of a medical miracle rather than the most sophisticated doping programme ever seen in sport, it is hard to keep the faith.
  • (5) "References to 'the miracles' that companies are able to perform risks underplaying the role that donors like DfID and country governments have in ensuring that economic development provides benefits to the poorest in society."
  • (6) Well you hadn't brought it up which is a bloody miracle after 20 minutes.
  • (7) It is hard to think of a better provisional epitaph than that supplied in the midst of his later troubles by Martin Palouš, one of the first signatories of Charter 77: "Havel was the man who was able to stage this miracle play.
  • (8) China’s miracle years have played out, and the government faces a difficult transition to the next phase of development It has been a traumatic month for China’s small investors, two-thirds of whom, according to a survey last year, have not finished high school .
  • (9) Do we have any reasons to suppose that any such miracles have occurred?
  • (10) Barcelona’s miracle worker Lionel Messi leaves Arsenal praying for one | Barney Ronay Read more City continue to monitor Messi’s situation should he become unsettled.
  • (11) HTB's services, the preaching, even the miracles, are all slick and informal and the atmosphere seems to most people genuinely friendly.
  • (12) If you want to be a contender for the Premier League, some things like this happen.” There was a glint in Pochettino’s eye as he reflected on the Chelsea game, in which nine of Spurs players were booked – a Premier League record – and it was a minor miracle no one was sent off.
  • (13) Given how empty the sea is, it was a miracle that his distress signal, transmitted to the ever-watchful Falmouth Coastguard, was picked up by a Chinese supertanker whose crew plucked him from the water minutes before his boat sank.
  • (14) And the marvellously named Victor Gauntlett, vintage-car driver and pilot, looks gloriously suburban haut-bourgeois, with his study full of The Miracle of Speed symbols in pictures and models, while the room's decoration and furnishings are all Home Counties 1919 in sympathies.
  • (15) The Good Soldier Schweik (1955) achieved the miracle of a West End run in 1956.
  • (16) That is not to belittle HIV – it is a life-changing condition, and some of the treatments have their side-effects – but, as HIV expert Prof Jonathan Weber put it to me, the treatment regimens developed in the mid-1990s are “so successful it’s like a miracle”.
  • (17) In fact, when you consider his position, it's a miracle he's not an eighty-a-day man.
  • (18) Our challenges are not those of tiger economies, suggesting their recipe of working harder for longer for less won't necessarily work miracles here.
  • (19) Here he gives Jennifer Lawrence her own vehicle: a fact-based comedy drama about a single mother of three who becomes a successful businesswoman after inventing the Miracle Mop.
  • (20) The spark for the longest-running protest in modern Tunisian history was lit on 17 December in the town of Sidi Bouzid, in the rural interior of Tunisia, a region of olive groves and agriculture which is racked by vast unemployment, repression and poverty a world away from the riches of the Tunisian tourist coast and the propaganda of Tunisia's "economic miracle".

Wonder


Definition:

  • (n.) That emotion which is excited by novelty, or the presentation to the sight or mind of something new, unusual, strange, great, extraordinary, or not well understood; surprise; astonishment; admiration; amazement.
  • (n.) A cause of wonder; that which excites surprise; a strange thing; a prodigy; a miracle.
  • (v. i.) To be affected with surprise or admiration; to be struck with astonishment; to be amazed; to marvel.
  • (v. i.) To feel doubt and curiosity; to wait with uncertain expectation; to query in the mind; as, he wondered why they came.
  • (a.) Wonderful.
  • (adv.) Wonderfully.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The information about her father's semi-brainwashing forms an interesting backdrop to Malala's comments when I ask if she ever wonders about the man who tried to kill her on her way back from school that day in October last year, and why his hands were shaking as he held the gun – a detail she has picked up from the girls in the school bus with her at the time; she herself has no memory of the shooting.
  • (2) He said: "This is a wonderful town but Tesco will suck the life out of the greengrocers, butchers, off-licence, and then it is only a matter of time for us too.
  • (3) All 17 candidates are going to be participating in debate night and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity Reince Priebus Republican party officials have defended the decision to limit participation, pointing out that the chasing pack will get a chance to debate separately before the main event.
  • (4) But in the rush to design it, Girardet wonders if the finer details of waste disposal and green power were lost.
  • (5) Two years ago I met a wonderful man and we now feel it’s time to tie the knot.
  • (6) No evidence has been produced that she was personally involved in the bribery, but some are wondering whether the Petrobras scandal might turn into a Watergate for her.
  • (7) But she has struggled – quite awkwardly – to articulate her evolution on same-sex marriage, and has left environmental activists wondering what her exact energy policy is.
  • (8) With grievous amazement, never self-pitying but sometimes bordering on a sort of numbed wonderment, Levi records the day-to-day personal and social history of the camp, noting not only the fine gradations of his own descent, but the capacity of some prisoners to cut a deal and strike a bargain, while others, destined by their age or character for the gas ovens, follow "the slope down to the bottom, like streams that run down to the sea".
  • (9) Would it best best to risk a Great Reform Bill (shades of 1832) - or would piecemeal reform be best, some wonder?
  • (10) He added: “From what we’ve seen so far, Londoners can be forgiven for wondering if Zac will be a mayor who works to bring London’s diverse communities together or one who will drive them apart.” Others evince real surprise over Goldsmith’s stance.
  • (11) Given this bipartisan strategy to minimise commitments, there is little wonder that voter turnout also reached a historical low, with less than two thirds bothering to vote in the east.
  • (12) As he sits in Athens wondering when the International Monetary Fund is going to deliver another bailout, George Papandreou might be tempted to hum a few lines of Tired of Waiting for You.
  • (13) KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE "Having watched 42-year-old Kevin Poole turn out for Derby recently, I wondered 'have any grandfathers ever played league football?'
  • (14) "My wonderful, brave and adored father, Jack Ashley, Lord Ashley of Stoke, has died after a short battle with pneumonia."
  • (15) Had not Jaggers summoned me to see him on the day of my majority some years later, I might have wondered at the psychological implausibility of an old woman training a child to be a psychopath, but luckily I was so caught up by the possibility of my benefactor's name being revealed that the thought quite slipped my mind.
  • (16) I believe you are aware of the meeting – and so wondered if 3pm or later on Thursday works for you?
  • (17) Facebook Twitter Pinterest May dismisses reports of frosty dinner with EU chief as ‘Brussels gossip’ The EU delegation are said to have wondered whether Davis might still be in his post following the general election.
  • (18) One of the punters came up to me after and said that I seemed confident, but he’d spent the whole time wondering when I was going to tell a joke.
  • (19) In north Wales, Llandudno town council has had to cancel its annual display at short notice after it was told it would have to pay at least £22,000 to insure the wonderful Victorian pier in case of a fire.
  • (20) No wonder public discussion of this most unexpected scientific development has so far been muted and respectful, waiting for the expert community that discovered the anomaly by accident – the Opera experiment at Gran Sasso was devised to isolate different varieties of neutrino, not to test Einstein – to work out what it all means, or doesn't.