What's the difference between torture and vex?

Torture


Definition:

  • (n.) Extreme pain; anguish of body or mind; pang; agony; torment; as, torture of mind.
  • (n.) Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an accused person, as by water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack or wheel.
  • (n.) The act or process of torturing.
  • (v. t.) To put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex.
  • (v. t.) To punish with torture; to put to the rack; as, to torture an accused person.
  • (v. t.) To wrest from the proper meaning; to distort.
  • (v. t.) To keep on the stretch, as a bow.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The denial of justice to victims of British torture, some of which Britain admits, is set to continue.
  • (2) Hayden had argued that the harsher interrogation techniques had provided valuable information and said that the techniques did not amount to torture.
  • (3) The court hearing – in a case of the kind likely to be heard in secret if the government's justice and security bill is passed – was requested by the law firm Leigh Day and the legal charity Reprieve, acting for Serdar Mohammed, tortured by the Afghan security services after being transferred to their custody by UK forces.
  • (4) "Consider this, all six or so hours of his Champions League finals would have been torture."
  • (5) Lastly, sexually tortured women manifest greater psychological and sexual dysfunction.
  • (6) The government also faced considerable international political pressure, with the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, calling publicly on the government to "provide full redress to the victims, including fair and adequate compensation", and writing privately to David Cameron, along with two former special rapporteurs, to warn that the government's position was undermining its moral authority across the world.
  • (7) And it means the Foreign Office dealing with those in the Middle East and North Africa who are on the side of democracy and human rights, not sitting down to tea with torturers.
  • (8) In a 2012 study submitted to the UN, the Petersburg-based centre alleged that Roma and migrants were routinely subjected to police torture .
  • (9) His torturous journey for a safer life has led to no life .
  • (10) The day it opened in the US, three senators – senate select committee on intelligence chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain – released a letter of protest to Sony Pictures's CEO, citing their committee's 6,000-page classified report on interrogation tactics and calling on him "to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film's fictional narrative".
  • (11) But under his government the security forces killed more than 2,000 people, and an estimated 25,000 people were detained without trial and often tortured.
  • (12) Limits are a relief, because they concentrate the drama and free the writer from the torture of choice, as Aristotle knew when he advised playwrights to preserve "the unities" by telling one story in one place over a single day.
  • (13) Sometimes the way the MP [military policeman] holds the head chokes me, and with all the nerves in the nose the tube passing the nose is like torture,” Dhiab said in a legal filing.
  • (14) Diego Garcia guards its secrets even as the truth on CIA torture emerges Read more The long-awaited decision – expected to cause enormous disappointment – follows more than 40 years of campaigning, court cases and calls for the UK to right a wrong committed by Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
  • (15) In his letter Abd El Fattah highlights the arbitrary nature of many of their detentions, the torture to which thousands have probably been subjected – and the apathy towards, and often enthusiasm for, such malpractice among the public.
  • (16) The consequences for Syria have been multiple massacres, ethnic cleansing, torture, a humanitarian crisis and the risk of the country's breakup.
  • (17) While ruling that there had been improper use of Schedule 7 powers, the judge commented: "It was clear that the Security Service, for entirely understandable reasons, was anxious if possible to get information which could not be regarded as tainted by torture allegations or which might confirm the propriety of a control order."
  • (18) All the personality, dignity and humanity of a person are devastated by this torture.
  • (19) You had to let it crash over you.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Miles’s life was torture’ … Lu Spinney at home.
  • (20) Davis said he would be surprised if an incoming Conservative government did not set up an immediate inquiry into this case and others where Britain is alleged to have been involved in the secret rendering by the US of detainees to prison where they were likely to be tortured.

Vex


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To to/s back and forth; to agitate; to disquiet.
  • (v. t.) To make angry or annoyed by little provocations; to irritate; to plague; to torment; to harass; to afflict; to trouble; to tease.
  • (v. t.) To twist; to weave.
  • (v. i.) To be irritated; to fret.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) De Boer's successor's first tasks will be to keep the US aboard the negotiations and to clear up the vexed question of the legal status of the Copenhagen accord , the deal struck at Copenhagen by a small group but not endorsed by a majority of countries.
  • (2) There is also the vexed question of what should be the legal form of any Paris agreement, a subject likely to keep negotiators up late into the night at the conference, and some anxiety among the hosts over whether the text of a deal can be formulated in due time.
  • (3) But the bigger question, the one that has vexed historians, biographers and holocaust experts for eight decades, is why she was there.
  • (4) Cs (2 mM) reduced diastolic depolarization (DD) at different [Ca]O and in 10.8 mM [Ca]O revealed an oscillatory potential (VOS) and the decay of a prolonged depolarization (Vex).
  • (5) The past few days have been vexing ones for reporting guidelines, voluntary or legal.
  • (6) The present data also highlighted the vexed relationship between stress and seizure control, which needs to be further investigated.
  • (7) Another vexed national question in the coming months will be this one: who is the most worthy winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
  • (8) Delivery of monoclonal antibodies to solid tumors is a vexing problem that must be solved if these antibodies are to realize their promise in therapy.
  • (9) Pathologists without considerable experience in the diagnosis of bone tumors find this question especially vexing.
  • (10) Caffeine (5 mM) abolishes Vos and Ios and increases Vex and Iex (as DOXO does), and adding DOXO slightly increased Vex and Iex.
  • (11) Posttraumatic joint stiffness is particularly vexing in the small joints.
  • (12) In this spirit, a vignette is offered from a clinical area in which questions of "health" and "illness" are particularly vexing at present.
  • (13) Some might argue that our eyes weren't quite on the ball back in '89: never mind the cataclysmic political upheaval in eastern Europe – the results of which still echo around the world – let's devote ourselves to a page concerned with vexed questions such as: why is water wet?
  • (14) The draft provides scant details on the vexed subject of accountability for emission reduction programmes.
  • (15) Nowhere was the commission’s balancing act more finely weighted than on the vexed question of bioenergy, which Cañete admitted was “a clear problem”.
  • (16) The top Chinese negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said there was also a possibility of advances on the vexed issued of transparency – how to monitor, report and verify each nation's emissions to ensure they are honouring their pledges.
  • (17) But now it’s Isis who are the insurgents,” leaving the peshmerga with the vexing challenge of defending and holding territory.
  • (18) On the vexed issue of longer term finance, the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi presented an offer to reduce developing country demands by 75% to $100bn a year from 2020, in return for guarantees of how the money would be distributed.
  • (19) Discussed here are some contours of the vexing problem of adequate minority participation in the health professions and a brief discussion of some programs that appear to be working.
  • (20) After the creed and some Benjamin Britten, and a blessing and a long round of applause, the man charged with holding together the fractious global Anglican communion as it struggles with the vexed issues of women bishops and same-sex marriage processed out of the cathedral and into the bitterly cold spring afternoon.