What's the difference between tease and torment?

Tease


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To comb or card, as wool or flax.
  • (v. t.) To stratch, as cloth, for the purpose of raising a nap; teasel.
  • (v. t.) To tear or separate into minute shreds, as with needles or similar instruments.
  • (v. t.) To vex with importunity or impertinence; to harass, annoy, disturb, or irritate by petty requests, or by jests and raillery; to plague.
  • (n.) One who teases or plagues.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The dried-specimen-teasing method appears useful, because of the ease of preparation of the specimens, its reproducibility, and the degree of visibility and preservation of cell surface structures and intraclonal relationships.
  • (2) "My great ambition is to be president of a golf club where I am playing," he teased .
  • (3) I used to tease him with the suggestion he had chosen me as walking companion because I had no mathematics at all and so he was safe from prying questions, but in fact now and then he did used to tell me about what he was doing – and how clear it all seemed when he spoke!
  • (4) To examine this proposal VIP concentrations in plasma from arterial, gastric venous and intestinal venous blood were measured in healthy conscious lambs before, during and after teasing with, and sucking of milk.
  • (5) Teased-fiber techniques were used to record from 28 CMHs that innervated the hairy skin of upper or lower limb in anesthetized monkeys.
  • (6) When the behavior of the nontarget partners was controlled, children initiated more physical aggression, nonverbal teasing, and regression after experiencing negative social comparison with the partners than after following the other treatments.
  • (7) Paxman claimed that at the same lunch Morgan had teased Ulrika Jonsson about the details of a private conversation she had had with Erikson, who was England manager at the time.
  • (8) A teased fiber technique established that the ratio of internodal distance and fiber diameter in urodele nerves was essentially similar to that in Anolis.
  • (9) He teased readers by adding: “By the time you read this I will know whether it has worked.” The American Academy of Neurology is sceptical about the treatment .
  • (10) At one point he teases us with the intro to 'When You Were Mine' at another he wittily picks out the theme to The Beverly Hillbillies .
  • (11) We did not perform a sexy version of oppression or create a teasing "naughty" campaign.
  • (12) Surgery should be performed ideally before the early school years, when the child is subjected to the most teasing, provided both parents and the patient have realistic expectations and really want the major reconstruction.
  • (13) Her teenage sons, who haven't read the book, tease her often, which is jolly; her mother, though distressed to find that Christian and Anastasia never seem to shower after sex, is delighted; even her father-in-law likes the book.
  • (14) As soon as he could, Coltrane escaped to art school in Glasgow, where he had much more fun – despite being teased for sounding posh – but discovered he wasn't an artist.
  • (15) At least director JJ Abrams had a sense of humour about the hype machine when he teased a "sneak peek" of a scanty three frames of Star Trek Into Darkness on Conan O'Brien.
  • (16) At 12 h and 24 h after crush, however, no ovoids were apparent and the number of incisures present was determined from teased fibres by light microscopy using oil immersion.
  • (17) Zidane, however, was in the mood to tease his admirers.
  • (18) The histological study using the teasing method demonstrated the existence of unmyelinated fibres, in the thoraco-cervical region of the vagus nerve, becoming progressively myelinated from the periphery to the nodose ganglion.
  • (19) The most common finding in teased fibres from each leprosy type was paranodal demyelination affecting successive internodes.
  • (20) Functional properties of neurons regenerating axons into the grafts were studied by recording from single regenerated fibers teased from the grafts.

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.

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