What's the difference between misery and misfortune?

Misery


Definition:

  • (n.) Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
  • (n.) Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
  • (n.) Covetousness; niggardliness; avarice.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Northern Ireland will not be dragged back by terrorists who have nothing but misery to offer."
  • (2) The Coalition promises to add more misery to their lives.
  • (3) I thought she had been put out of her misery by marriage but now she is a widow.
  • (4) This is not some sophisticated, Westminstery battle, but a life-and-death, misery-or-decency choice about the very basics of life for hundreds of thousands of older British people.
  • (5) "While the country is sunk in misery, families are ruined and children are growing up in poverty, this guy turns up and we pay €91m for him.
  • (6) It is only going to cause more disruption and misery for passengers.
  • (7) An arms embargo should be imposed on Israel, the former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell has said , as he warned that the level of misery and carnage in Gaza was likely to poison the remaining goodwill in the region for generations.
  • (8) In Kew Gardens, west London, 18mm of rain fell in just an hour on Saturday afternoon with other deluges causing travel misery.
  • (9) So, in The Devil Wears Prada , the ferocious magazine chief played by Meryl Streep is beset by secret misery: unfaithful husband, tricky kids, wig issues.
  • (10) He skirted round the issue of historic responsibility for the misery but referred to the sheer scale of the sacrifice, pointing out that, among more than 14,000 parishes in the whole of England and Wales, only about 50 so-called "thankful parishes" saw all their soldiers return.
  • (11) Spanish football fans’ habit of waving white hankies tends to be derisive, signifying that they wish a hapless manager to be put out of their club’s misery.
  • (12) Above all, MPs should vote to stop needless misery for families afflicted by this rare but terrible disorder.
  • (13) At the same time, by achieving a state of misery through following her mother's orders, she exposed her as ridiculous, and thus covertly discharged considerable aggression.
  • (14) Labour are finally crafting a clearer line on Brexit: this morning, the shadow chancellor warned that “losing access to the single market would be devastating for jobs, livelihoods and our public services”, that Britain didn’t vote for “economic misery and the loss of jobs”, and that the government was “abandoning Britain’s clear national interests by putting narrow party political concerns first.” These are good lines – and clarify that Labour’s priority is single-market access – but they will only cut through if repeated in similar language until people can hardly bear to hear them anymore.
  • (15) Behind the chancellor, Tories kept up a wall of noise, laughing and jeering at the misery guts on the benches opposite.
  • (16) Oxygen supply by this route, however, may enable the inner ear tissue alive even in misery perfusion and recover the high tone potential as a therapy of otitis media with effusion.
  • (17) It wasn’t too long ago that I was sitting inside a tent with newfound friends, fasting on the National Mall and feeling a profound hunger – literally, yes, but also a hunger within, to see an end to the misery endured by those who come to our country to escape poverty and violence in search of a bright future for their families.
  • (18) Forty percent of An-ICH were treated conservatively and the outcome was very misery (no useful life and 94% was poor or dead).
  • (19) Most human misery can be blamed on failed relationships and physical and mental illness rather than money problems and poverty, according to a landmark study by a team of researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE).
  • (20) While a US presidential visit would normally be expected to command the lion's share of attention in South Korea, the country remains preoccupied with the misery wrought by the sinking of the passenger ferry.

Misfortune


Definition:

  • (n.) Bad fortune or luck; calamity; an evil accident; disaster; mishap; mischance.
  • (v. i.) To happen unluckily or unfortunately; to miscarry; to fail.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Other than failing to get a goal, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” From Lambert’s perspective there was an element of misfortune about the first and third goals, with Willian benefitting from handy ricochets on both occasions.
  • (2) Penises do no harm, they just sometimes have the misfortune to be attached to people who do.
  • (3) Recent changes at Bicêtre, the historic French institution, exemplify an old paradox in the care of the elderly: improvements which benefit part of a society can mean more misfortunes for others.
  • (4) The bluefin tuna, which has been endangered for several years and has the misfortune to be prized by Japanese sushi lovers, has suffered a catastrophic decline in stocks in the Northern Pacific Ocean, of more than 96%, according to research published on Wednesday.
  • (5) Last July Swatis might have been forgiven for thinking their misfortune was over.
  • (6) And it left him more conscious than he might have been of the random way in which misfortune can knock lives off course.
  • (7) Taking pleasure at the misfortune of rivals is an instinct baked deeply into the character of many journalists.
  • (8) There was an element of misfortune from our point of view about both but it would have been easy to think things weren’t going our way so I’m really pleased with the way we responded.
  • (9) That’s something which I personally added to a situation that I had experienced, because it seemed to me that one could easily die of one’s misfortunes and the things that depress, deflate one.
  • (10) Liz Truss now has the misfortune to inherit the operational disaster that is the direct result of these continued budget reductions and wild swings in government policy.
  • (11) I am satisfied with what I saw, especially after we had this misfortune to concede an own goal in the first couple of minutes.
  • (12) He smiled warmly on his dustjackets, as a very wealthy, very successful author should, but admitted that he was "preoccupied with death, disease and misfortune".
  • (13) She was objecting to people who used society as an excuse for ignoring their own responsibilities, as when they complain that society shouldn't allow a particular misfortune, while doing nothing to make things better.
  • (14) The emergence of such a disturbing trend is just one example of the many ways that the grim economic times are impacting on demand for care services – in this instance, with innocent children apparently being blamed for family misfortunes.
  • (15) It was conjectured that subjects in the positive condition were annoyed by the disabled person's display of "normal" characteristics, whereas in the negative condition they sympathetically accepted the disabled person's inadequacies as befitting a victim of severe misfortune.
  • (16) To lose one cabinet minister, Jacqui Smith, may be regarded as a misfortune.
  • (17) It has even called in Buddhist monks to conduct religious rites to get rid of misfortune, hoping to dispel staff anxieties.
  • (18) Adding insult to injury, we have to deal with what feels like the entire country blaming us for our misfortune.
  • (19) Lesions of the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee are very frequent misfortune and the results of their suture being insufficient yet, made us to explore the possibility to replace the damaged ligament with the fascia lata as an autologous transplant.
  • (20) Knowledge of how these societies try to prevent and cure illness and misfortune would be a preliminary condition for public health programs.