Wince vs Cringe - What's the difference?
wince | cringe |
A sudden movement or gesture of shrinking away.
A reel used in dyeing, steeping, or washing cloth; a winch. It is placed over the division wall between two wince pits so as to allow the cloth to descend into either compartment at will.
To flinch as if in pain or distress.
* (William Shakespeare)
* , chapter=17
, title= * {{quote-book, year=1935, author=
, title=The Norwich Victims, chapter=7/2 To wash (cloth), dip it in dye, etc., with the use of a wince.
To kick or flounce when unsteady or impatient.
A posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling.
(dialect) A crick.
(dated) To bow or crouch in servility.
* Milton
* 1903 , ,
* 1904 , ,
To shrink, tense or recoil, as in fear, disgust or embarrassment.
* Bunyan
* 1917 , ,
(obsolete) To contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort.
* Shakespeare
In intransitive terms the difference between wince and cringe
is that wince is to flinch as if in pain or distress while cringe is to shrink, tense or recoil, as in fear, disgust or embarrassment.wince
English
Noun
(en noun)Verb
(winc)- I will not stir, nor wince , nor speak a word.
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=“Perhaps it is because I have been excommunicated. It's absurd, but I feel like the Jackdaw of Rheims.” ¶ She winced and bowed her head. Each time that he spoke flippantly of the Church he caused her pain.}}
citation, passage=The two Gordon setters came obediently to heel. Sir Oswald Feiling winced as he turned to go home. He had felt a warning twinge of lumbago.}}
cringe
English
Alternative forms
* (dialectal)Noun
(en noun)- He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
Verb
- Sly hypocrite, who more than thou / Once fawned and cringed , and servilely adored / Heaven's awful monarch?
- He heard the hateful clank of their chains; he felt them cringe and grovel, and there rose within him a protest and a prophecy.
- Leclere was bent on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.
- He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
- When they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions.
- But he made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth.
- Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.