Cringe vs Startle - What's the difference?
cringe | startle |
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
(label) To move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start.
* (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
(label) To excite by sudden alarm, surprise, or apprehension; to frighten suddenly and not seriously; to alarm; to surprise.
* (John Locke) (1632-1705)
* 1896 , (Joseph Conrad), "(An Outcast of the Islands)"
* , title=Say Cheese and Die, Again!
, passage=The high voice in the night air startled me. Without thinking, I started to run. Then stopped. I spun around, my heart heaving against my chest. And saw a boy. About my age.}}
To deter; to cause to deviate.
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.}}
A sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger.
* {{quote-book
, year=1845
, author=George Hooker Colton, James Davenport Whelpley
, title=The American review
, chapter=1
, passage=The figure of a man heaving in sight amidst these wide solitudes, always causes a startle and thrill of expectation and doubt, similar to the feeling produced by the announcement of " a strange sail ahead" on shipboard, during a long voyage.}}
In intransitive terms the difference between cringe and startle
is that cringe is to shrink, tense or recoil, as in fear, disgust or embarrassment while startle is to move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start.In transitive obsolete terms the difference between cringe and startle
is that cringe is to contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort while startle is to deter; to cause to deviate.As nouns the difference between cringe and startle
is that cringe is a posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling while startle is a sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger.As verbs the difference between cringe and startle
is that cringe is to bow or crouch in servility while startle is to move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start.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.
Derived terms
* cringeworthySee also
* crouch * winceAnagrams
*startle
English
Verb
(startl)- Why shrinks the soul / Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
- The supposition, at least, that angels do sometimes assume bodies need not startle us.
- Nothing could startle her, make her scold or make her cry. She did not complain, she did not rebel.
- (Clarendon)
“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./4/2