What's the difference between suffer and torment?

Suffer


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To feel, or endure, with pain, annoyance, etc.; to submit to with distress or grief; to undergo; as, to suffer pain of body, or grief of mind.
  • (v. t.) To endure or undergo without sinking; to support; to sustain; to bear up under.
  • (v. t.) To undergo; to be affected by; to sustain; to experience; as, most substances suffer a change when long exposed to air and moisture; to suffer loss or damage.
  • (v. t.) To allow; to permit; not to forbid or hinder; to tolerate.
  • (v. i.) To feel or undergo pain of body or mind; to bear what is inconvenient; as, we suffer from pain, sickness, or sorrow; we suffer with anxiety.
  • (v. i.) To undergo punishment; specifically, to undergo the penalty of death.
  • (v. i.) To be injured; to sustain loss or damage.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The main clinical features pertaining to the concept of the "psycho-organic syndrome" (POS) were investigated in a sample of children who suffered from severe craniocerebral trauma.
  • (2) To the remaining patients who suffered from severe insomnia, 7-chloro-5-(2-chlorophenyl)-1,3-dihydro-2H-1,4-benzodiazepin-2-one (chlordesmethyldiazepam, 2 mg orally) was administered for 7 consecutive evenings.
  • (3) The occurrence of episodes of desaturation during sleep in patients suffering from chronic airflow obstruction is well known.
  • (4) Ninety-five per cent were suffering from chiasmal compression pre-operatively.
  • (5) Efficacy and tolerability of perorally administered desmopressin were evaluated in 12 adult patients suffering from central diabetes insipidus.
  • (6) She added: “We will continue to act upon the overwhelming majority view of our shareholders.” The vote was the second year running Ryanair had suffered a rebellion on pay.
  • (7) He said the 8.13am train from the French capital to London reached Calais before suffering “network problems”.
  • (8) The results confirm that physical training is clinically effective in patients suffering from claudication.
  • (9) But still we have to fight for health benefits, we have to jump through loops … Why doesn’t the NFL offer free healthcare for life, especially for those suffering from brain injury?” The commissioner, however, was quick to remind Davis that benefits are agreed as part of the collective bargaining process held between the league and the players’ union, and said that they had been extended during the most recent round of negotiations.
  • (10) This paper reports on observations of five families suffering from distinct thrombophilia due to a protein C defect.
  • (11) Huth, a Stoke player for more than five years, has made only one Premier League appearance since suffering a knee injury in November 2013.
  • (12) To treat children suffering from the nephrotic syndrome, use was made of the membrano-stabilizing agents: zaditen that also has an antiallergic action; dimephosphon, a membrano-stabilizer and immunomodulator.
  • (13) So I am, of course, intrigued about the city’s newest tourist attraction: a hangover bar, open at weekends, in which sufferers can come in and have a bit of a lie down in soothingly subdued lighting, while sipping vitamin-enriched smoothies.
  • (14) The authors present an analysis of the results of laboratory immunological examination of 52 patients suffering from recurrent respiratory infections.
  • (15) Yves was the vulnerable, suffering artist and Pierre the fiercely controlling protector: a man who, in Lespert's film, is painfully aware of his public image – "the pimp who's found his all-star hooker".
  • (16) This paper raises other issues for consideration, including problems associated with HIV testing, confidentiality, informed consent and the dilemmas facing those involved in the treatment of patients suffering from HIV infection.
  • (17) A neonate, with a postconceptual age of 29 weeks, suffered thrombosis of the aorta as a consequence of umbilical artery catheterisation.
  • (18) Instead, we suffer sporadic exhibitions, which they call consultation.
  • (19) Studied were the clinical symptoms manifested by both the pigs exhibiting cannibalism and by those that suffered, following up a number of biochemical indices.
  • (20) The authors have studied the different situations that prompt a request for genetic counseling if different members of the same family suffer from cancer.

Torment


Definition:

  • (n.) An engine for casting stones.
  • (n.) Extreme pain; anguish; torture; the utmost degree of misery, either of body or mind.
  • (n.) That which gives pain, vexation, or misery.
  • (v. t.) To put to extreme pain or anguish; to inflict excruciating misery upon, either of body or mind; to torture.
  • (v. t.) To pain; to distress; to afflict.
  • (v. t.) To tease; to vex; to harass; as, to be tormented with importunities, or with petty annoyances.
  • (v. t.) To put into great agitation.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Her story is an incredible tale of triumph over tragedy: a tormented childhood during China's Cultural Revolution, detention and forced exile after exposing female infanticide – then glittering success as the head of a major US technology firm.
  • (2) "It is difficult to imagine the torment experienced by the vulnerable victims of crimes such as these.
  • (3) While his citizens were being beaten and tormented in illegal detention, spokesmen for the then prime minister, Tony Blair, declared: "The Italian police had a difficult job to do.
  • (4) Yet the removal of two in-form goalscorers who were tormenting West Ham – first Aaron Lennon and then Lukaku – afforded the visitors the initiative.
  • (5) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
  • (6) Corner to USA though... 1.33am BST 20 mins More tempo in the American play now, but Belgium intercept again, and Mirallas torments them down the Belgian right flank before hitting a low cross in that's hoofed safely clear.
  • (7) It cannot be right that anyone who has found the courage to escape their abusive or violent partner should be subjected to the stress and torment of being confronted and interrogated by them in any court.” Research by charity Women’s Aid suggests a quarter of women in family court proceedings have been cross-examined by an abusive former partner.
  • (8) Shin Dong-hyuk said he was tormented to see his father alive and speaking in the video released by Pyongyang in October.
  • (9) In a torment of frustration, Mohammed stood outside the governor's and threw a can of petrol over himself.
  • (10) More than a quarter of hospital beds are occupied by people with dementia (no surprise to anyone who has been in hospital recently, where wards are full of men and women in great anxiety and torment) and they tend to stay for longer-than-average periods of time.
  • (11) Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island whose bipartisan bill will ensure a three-month extension of the federal benefits program, told the Guardian the measure would stimulate the economy and alleviate what he called the “mental torment” suffered by those long-term unemployed who now feel abandoned.
  • (12) It was only his inflexible determination, the quality that had made him a great general, that mastered the torments of ill-health – sleepless nights, fear of dying – to articulate his account for a devoted American audience.
  • (13) The man who devised these torments has a passing resemblance to El Greco's emaciated saints.
  • (14) Arsenal had no riposte to the blue and white striped waves that tormented them all evening.
  • (15) Father Michael, so brilliantly played by Sean Bean , was tormented by one such moment: his decision not to answer the phone to Helen Oyenusi (Muna Otaru) when she called to ask that he calm down her son.
  • (16) Suárez played as through affronted by the suggestion he might have fitness issues, tormenting England’s defence on a night that finished as a personal ordeal for Steven Gerrard.
  • (17) So often did John torment his elder brother – because, grouchy alcoholic prick that he was, he hated to acknowledge a debt – one has to wonder if he cast Francis in a minor part in Young Mr Lincoln simply to let him witness, day after day, his own signature role being forever obliterated by Henry Fonda's entrancing new reading.
  • (18) Shawcross, however, maintains there was no bad intent and said for that reason he has not been tormenting himself about the moment he collided with Ramsey's right leg and left the teenager writhing in agony.
  • (19) Since his withdrawal from the music scene, Shields has earned a reputation as the latter-day Brian Wilson, a tormented genius unable to produce a successor to Loveless, the Pet Sounds of UK avant-rock.
  • (20) Adding to the torment for Rodgers was a 120-minute performance before hosting Manchester City in the Premier League on Sunday at noon.