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Adversity vs Wretched - What's the difference?

adversity | wretched |

As a noun adversity

is (uncountable) the state of adverse conditions; state of misfortune or calamity.

As an adjective wretched is

very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.

adversity

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • (uncountable) The state of adverse conditions; state of misfortune or calamity.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1858
  • , year_published=2008 , publisher=Read Books , author= , title= , section=Chapter III citation , isbn=9781443734035 , page=55 , passage=The doctor loved the squire, loved him as his oldest friend; but he loved him ten times better as being in adversity than he could ever have done had things gone well at Greshansbury in his time.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=2007
  • , publisher=PublishAmerica , author=Earl Crouch , title=Do You Know? , chapter=When Adversity Strikes citation , isbn=9781424173914 , page=60 , passage=God approves all adversity'. Not all '''adversity''' that the Christian encounters is due to sins in the Christian's life. Not all ' adversity is the fault of the Christian.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1998
  • , publisher=Naval Institute Press , editor=Karel Montor , author=Karel Montor, et al , title=Naval Leadership: Voices of Experience , edition=2nd edition , chapter=Directing and Coordinating Operations , section=Efficient and Professional Conduct citation , isbn=9781557505965 , page=278 , passage=These are the people who will overcome the adversity , chaos, and destruction of combat and defeat the enemy in war.}}
  • (countable) An event that is adverse; calamity.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=1859
  • , author= , coauthors= , title=The Great Earl of Cork , date=September 1859 , volume=LIV , issue= , page=326 , magazine=The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal , publisher=Alex Thom & Sons citation , passage=Having “secret notice,” the writer of “True Remembrances” declares of the above complains, he retired into Munster, intending to proceed to England, to justify himself; but was detained there for want of money by the breaking out of rebellion. This adversity befell him in the autumn of 1598. }}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1977
  • , year_published=1979 , publisher=Routledge , author=Genevieve Burton , title=Interpersonal Relations: A Guide for Nurses , edition=Fourth edition , chapter=Family Adversity and the Nurse citation , isbn=9780422769907 , page=101 , passage=Every family is struck by adversity' at one time or another. No matter how mature the patients are, regardless of the care an advantages they give their children, despite a desirable interactive love between family members, ' adversity will attack any family}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006
  • , year_published=2007 , publisher=Plume , author=Elizabeth Wissner-Gross , title=What Colleges Don't Tell You (and Other Parents Don't Want You to Know: 272 Secrets for Getting Your Kid Into the Top Schools , chapter=Getting Your Kid off the Waiting List and into the School of His or Her Dreams citation , isbn=9780452288546 , page=272 , passage=Make sure that your child’s adversity' is ''really'' an '''adversity'''. Not having parents who can buy a new car upon your son’s sixteenth birthday is not an '''adversity'''. Being the only girl on the block who doesn’t own a designed handbag is not an ' adversity }}

    Synonyms

    *nakba

    wretched

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1918, author=(w)
  • , title=Creatures That Once Were Men, and other stories, chapter=4 citation , passage=As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.}}
  • Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1864, author=(Fyodor Dostoyevsky), title=Notes from Underground, chapter=1
  • citation , passage=My room is a wretched , horrid one in the outskirts of the town.}}
  • *, chapter=17
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.}}
  • * , Episode 16
  • All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag,.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 11, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Liverpool 3-0 Man City , passage=Mario Balotelli replaced Tevez but his contribution was so negligible that he suffered the indignity of being substituted himself as time ran out, a development that encapsulated a wretched 90 minutes for City and boss Roberto Mancini. }}
  • (obsolete) Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.
  • Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "wretched" is often applied: woman, state, life, condition, creature, man, excess, person, place, world, being, situation, weather, slave, animal, city, village, health, house, town.

    Quotations

    * To what wretched state reserved! Milton * Wretched ungratefulness . Sir Philip Sidney * Wrechet World King Lear

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * wretchedness