What's the difference between pounce and seize?

Pounce


Definition:

  • (n.) A fine powder, as of sandarac, or cuttlefish bone, -- formerly used to prevent ink from spreading on manuscript.
  • (n.) Charcoal dust, or some other colored powder for making patterns through perforated designs, -- used by embroiderers, lace makers, etc.
  • (v. t.) To sprinkle or rub with pounce; as, to pounce paper, or a pattern.
  • (v. t.) The claw or talon of a bird of prey.
  • (v. t.) A punch or stamp.
  • (v. t.) Cloth worked in eyelet holes.
  • (v. t.) To strike or seize with the talons; to pierce, as with the talons.
  • (v. t.) To punch; to perforate; to stamp holes in, or dots on, by way of ornament.
  • (v. i.) To fall suddenly and seize with the claws; -- with on or upon; as, a hawk pounces upon a chicken. Also used figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At a dinner party, say, if ever you hear a person speak of a school for Islamic children, or Catholic children (you can read such phrases daily in newspapers), pounce: "How dare you?
  • (2) And then with nine minutes remaining Agüero was on hand to pounce again after Aaron Cresswell inadvertently diverted Kelechi Iheanacho’s driving run into his path.
  • (3) Lamine Koné pounced on a knockdown from Jan Kirchhoff in the penalty area, evaded a tackle and squared for the substitute to prod home from seven yards and prompt scenes of unbridled jubilation in the away end.
  • (4) Just a stepover here, a Cruyff turn there, and his opponent would be destroyed ... Only in real life, Boruc stumbled and bumbled and Olivier Giroud pounced to score.
  • (5) January is a favoured month for banks to pounce on struggling businesses, while their tills are still full with Christmas takings.
  • (6) Gekas saw a shot saved by Navas but the goalkeeper could only parry and Papastathopoulos pounced.
  • (7) BSkyB pounces on 17.9 per cent stake, at 135 pence per share, costing £920m, blocking a potential bid from Virgin.
  • (8) Throughout the testing period, the latency to play, as indicated by one rat pouncing on the opponent, was significantly higher in prenatally stressed than control rats.
  • (9) When he went on to begin a sentence with the words, "In my layman's understanding ... " Nel pounced and said: "You see, Mr Dixon, now you call yourself a layman."
  • (10) Vermaelen’s attempted clearance is scruffy, and Götze pounces on it and fires off an instant shot from 15 yards.
  • (11) Botín's father, Emilio, executive chairman of the Santander group, was behind the takeover of Abbey National in 2004 and pounced on Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley during the 2008 banking crisis, in deals much envied by rivals.
  • (12) This week, the Mail pounced on another frighteningly generic cause: sitting down.
  • (13) Sturridge raced down the right and attempted to lay the ball across to the unmarked Suárez but José Fonte stretched to poke the ball behind just as the Uruguayan prepared to pounce.
  • (14) Sanchez pounces and switches the ball inside to Vidal.
  • (15) His passing is sweet and it is really interesting how deceitful he can be: Rodríguez can look absent from the game but can pounce and catch his markers unaware.
  • (16) Perhaps for all of the potential upsides there are still too many opportunities to fall foul of “death and gaffe watch” journalists waiting to pounce on a too-easily-misconstrued twitter picture.
  • (17) Supremely confident – although not arrogant – Norway claim they are probably the tournament’s fittest team but Isabell Herlovsen swiftly emphasised she is quick as well as athletic after pouncing on a rare Carney error.
  • (18) PSG had won the away leg 2-1 despite Zlatan Ibrahimovic's sending off and seemed content to sit back in an uneventful first half but the match came to life 10 minutes into the second period when Valencia's Brazilian forward Jonas pounced on a loose ball to rifle home a fierce shot from outside the penalty area.
  • (19) As ever, he will be razor sharp, ready to dart and pounce at just the right time, come kick-off against Fulham at Craven Cottageon Saturday, hoping for another goal to add to his wall chart.
  • (20) Origi read the midfielder’s intentions quicker than any home defender and pounced on the ball, held off Piszczek on the edge of the area and steered a low shot back inside Weidenfeller’s right hand post.

Seize


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To fall or rush upon suddenly and lay hold of; to gripe or grasp suddenly; to reach and grasp.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by force.
  • (v. t.) To invade suddenly; to take sudden hold of; to come upon suddenly; as, a fever seizes a patient.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by virtue of a warrant or other legal authority; as, the sheriff seized the debtor's goods.
  • (v. t.) To fasten; to fix.
  • (v. t.) To grap with the mind; to comprehend fully and distinctly; as, to seize an idea.
  • (v. t.) To bind or fasten together with a lashing of small stuff, as yarn or marline; as, to seize ropes.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Batson believes there is a “mood” that needs to be seized upon.
  • (2) George Osborne said the 146,000 fall in joblessness marked "another step on the road to full employment" but Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) seized on news that earnings were failing to keep pace with prices.
  • (3) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (4) Among the dead were two young young officers, Major Mujahid Ali and Captain Usman, whose life stories the media seized upon, helped by the military's public relations machine.
  • (5) Remember, if he did seize group power and dispose of the Independent , he'd still be boss of the rest of INM: 200 or so papers and magazines around the world, dominant voices in Australasia, South Africa, India and Ireland itself, 100 million readers a week.
  • (6) Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.
  • (7) Generals who have mutinied have seized the capital of South Sudan's largest state, Jonglei, and its main oil-producing area, Unity State.
  • (8) The coroner also raised concerns that although the aim of the operation in which Duggan was killed was to take guns off the streets, little attempt was made to seize weapons believed to be held by Hutchinson-Foster.
  • (9) Employers seize the workers’ passports and the only body that can issue a permit for a worker to leave Qatar is the employer himself.
  • (10) Backlogs and staff shortages have long been seized upon by veterans groups lobbying for more resources, but it is the apparent cover-up of the scale of the problem that has transformed these latest complaints into a growing political problem for the White House.
  • (11) Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.
  • (12) A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts, saying Isis fighters had massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing Kocho.
  • (13) "This is a formidable challenge, requiring step changes in the rate at which we improve our energy efficiency and in low-carbon innovation.The Carbon Trust's proposals recognise the need for us to be smarter in focusing our investments, including to help businesses seize the economic opportunities of the transition."
  • (14) The US and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when a group of student protesters seized the US embassy in Tehran and took US officials hostage.
  • (15) The militants have also seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, and have declared a self-styled caliphate in the territory they control.
  • (16) But the Tories edited out a crucial final sentence in which Balls told BBC Radio Leeds on 9 January : “But I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will.” Labour seized on the Tory editing of the Balls interview to accuse the Tories of misleading people to defend their refusal to tackle tax avoidance.
  • (17) The Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had given pro-Russian locals in eastern Ukraine until Monday morning to give up their arms and the buildings they had seized, but instead a pro-Russian mob took over yet another government building in Horlivka that day.
  • (18) The terrorists know that if Iraq and Afghanistan survive their assault, come through their travails, seize the opportunity the future offers, then those countries will stand not just as nations liberated from oppression, but as a lesson to humankind everywhere and a profound antidote to the poison of religious extremism.
  • (19) In 2014, they seized on Osborne’s declaration of a “northern powerhouse” to promote One North, a plan for a £15bn network, dubbed HS3, between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
  • (20) The president’s supporters seized on the incident to plant seeds of confusion and false equivalency: if that Russia story was wrong, perhaps all of them are wrong?