What's the difference between pierce and thorn?

Pierce


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument.
  • (v. t.) To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.
  • (v. t.) Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery.
  • (v. i.) To enter; to penetrate; to make a way into or through something, as a pointed instrument does; -- used literally and figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At pH 7.0, reduction is complete after 6 to 10 h. These results together with an earlier study concerning the positions of the two most readily reduced bonds (Cornell J.S., and Pierce, J.G.
  • (2) Cook, who has postbox-red hair and a painful-looking piercing in his lower lip, was now on stage in discussion with four fellow YouTubers, all in their early 20s.
  • (3) Meanwhile the Brooklyn Nets, who have been dealing with nothing but bad news since the start of the regular season, will be without Paul Pierce for 2-4 weeks, also due to a right hand fracture.
  • (4) After properly fixing the vas deferens with a ring clamp, the surgeon pierces the scrotal skin, vas sheath, and vas deferens in the midline with a curved dissecting clamp held at a 45 degree angle from horizontal.
  • (5) The dorsal interosseous muscles gave off tendons which pierced the transverse laminae or passed deep to the transverse laminae, and attached to the bases of the proximal phalanges.
  • (6) Four patients received a subclavian intraaortic balloon pump, two were supported with a Novacor left ventricular assist system, three patients received Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist devices, and one patient received a Jarvik 7 total artificial heart.
  • (7) Lisbeth Salander is a violent and emotionally uncommunicative tattooed and much-pierced goth who grew up in care, and has had serious mental health issues.
  • (8) Ear-piercing techniques include needles, safety pins, sharpened studs, and self-piercing kits.
  • (9) The price G4S is paying amounts to 8.5 times of top-line earnings - "by no means cheap," said Seymour Pierce analyst Kevin Lapwood.
  • (10) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (11) This paper draws attention to tool marks in the area of pierced rib cartilage and considers the possibilities of their analysis.
  • (12) Fourteen patients were supported with a Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist device (left ventricular assist in seven, right ventricular assist in three, both in four); nine were supported with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, two with a Medtronic centrifugal left ventricular assist pump, one with biventricular Biomedicus pumps, and one with a Novacor left ventricular assist system.
  • (13) A scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of the mouthparts of Psoroptes cuniculi from rabbits and P. ovis from sheep established that they are identical in morphology and are adapted for surface feeding rather than piercing the epidermis.
  • (14) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (15) We stress the need for strict enforcement of correct sterilization procedures whenever needles are used to pierce skin.
  • (16) By stepping back from some of the more radical solutions suggested before the election – such as the complete separation of high street banks from "casino" investment banks proposed by business secretary Vince Cable – the commission left the banks "secretly quite pleased", according to Bruce Packard, banks analyst at Seymour Pierce.
  • (17) In 2013, actor Pierce Brosnan’s daughter, Charlotte, died from ovarian cancer.
  • (18) The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."
  • (19) The passage through Congress of legislation such as the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the racially significant disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine, and the Death in Custody Act , which introduces a federal record of deaths in police custody, have shown that incarceration – and perhaps incarceration alone – is able to pierce through the partisan gridlock of Washington.
  • (20) Benteke and the tireless Andreas Weimann take the plaudits for their four passes that pierced the Liverpool defence and saw the Austrian forward sweep home Benteke's exquisite back-heel.

Thorn


Definition:

  • (n.) A hard and sharp-pointed projection from a woody stem; usually, a branch so transformed; a spine.
  • (n.) Any shrub or small tree which bears thorns; especially, any species of the genus Crataegus, as the hawthorn, whitethorn, cockspur thorn.
  • (n.) Fig.: That which pricks or annoys as a thorn; anything troublesome; trouble; care.
  • (n.) The name of the Anglo-Saxon letter /, capital form /. It was used to represent both of the sounds of English th, as in thin, then. So called because it was the initial letter of thorn, a spine.
  • (v. t.) To prick, as with a thorn.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But the outspoken journalist and human rights activist has long been a thorn in Ali Abdullah Saleh's side, agitating for press freedoms and staging weekly sit-ins to demand the release of political prisoners from jail – a place she has been several times herself.
  • (2) Daballen navigates the jeep between thorn bushes and over furrows, guided by a rising moon and his intimate knowledge of the terrain.
  • (3) Adoption and fostering: ‘The best thing you have ever done’ Read more The process of adopting disabled children was much harder when she first did it in the 1980s, Thorn says, adding that people tended to be bemused as to why any parent would volunteer for the additional work involved in bringing up children with varying needs.
  • (4) Puncture wounds were cuased in 9 patients by sea urchin spines and 1 patient by a date palm thorn.
  • (5) Supporters said they were not surprised she had been let go as she had become “a thorn in the flesh” of the DfE after speaking out against government policies.
  • (6) The call by Denmark’s prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, for the country to stand together echoes the Norwegian response after the massacre at Utøya .
  • (7) Sperm motion was analysed using the Hamilton-Thorn system before and after incubation and treatment.
  • (8) Three cases are reported in which pseudotumours developed in the hand following injury by oil palm thorns.
  • (9) Since becoming Denmark's first female prime minister two years ago, Thorning-Schmidt has had to contend with the media nickname of "Gucci Helle", so called because of her fondness for designer clothes.
  • (10) Wyden and Udall have been thorns in the side of the intelligence community, using their position on the committee, which permits them privileged access to classified briefings, to repeatedly challenge senior officials on the accuracy of their public testimony.
  • (11) He said police reports in Sweden showed SW had told a friend, Marie Thorn, that she felt police and others around her "railroaded her" into pressing charges.
  • (12) Although reviewers' letters may be considered an unnecessary thorn in the side, the improved practice that has resulted from these efforts gives strong support to their continued activities.
  • (13) In layers V and VI they mainly contact with the dendrite trunks and with the nervous cell bodies and more rarely with thorns.
  • (14) They gradually displayed active membrane pseudopodia, thorn-like processes and petal-like ruffles after 2 h to 4 h of cultivation.
  • (15) Other names circulating in EU capitals for the top commission job include the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, the outgoing Finnish prime minister on the centre-right, Jyrki Katainen, and the Danish prime minister on the centre-left, Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
  • (16) Across this relatively peaceful corner of the Horn of Africa, where black-headed sheep scamper among the thorn bushes, dainty gerenuk balance on their hind legs to nibble from hardy shrubs, and skinny camels wearing rough-hewn bells lumber over rocky slopes, people long accustomed to a harsh environment find they cannot cope after years of below-average rainfall.
  • (17) Synovectomy and removal of the plant thorn usually results in normal joint function.
  • (18) But, as Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, the vice president for strategic partnerships at Advocates for Youth, wrote in 2010 , rather than focus on if abortion is rare enough to make enough people comfortable, "What if we stopped focusing on the number of abortions and instead focused on the women themselves?"
  • (19) One teacher, who was hiding in a closet in the math lab, heard Thorne yell, "Put the gun down!"
  • (20) Based on a correlative radiographic and histologic slab study of the wrists in 50 infants who died of unrelated diseases, the author's chief conclusions are as follow: 1) On the wrist radiograph of the infant, bone bark in the Ranvier's groove may appear as a "thorn-like" bony process on the margins of the metaphysis of the radius and ulna.