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Cringe vs Unsettling - What's the difference?

cringe | unsettling |

As nouns the difference between cringe and unsettling

is that cringe is a posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling while unsettling is the weakening of some previously established system or norm.

As verbs the difference between cringe and unsettling

is that cringe is (dated|intransitive) to bow or crouch in servility while unsettling is .

As an adjective unsettling is

that makes one troubled or uneasy; disquieting or distressing.

cringe

English

Alternative forms

* (dialectal)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling.
    • He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
  • (dialect) A crick.

    • Verb

  • (dated) To bow or crouch in servility.
  • * Milton
    • Sly hypocrite, who more than thou / Once fawned and cringed , and servilely adored / Heaven's awful monarch?
  • * 1903 , ,
    • He heard the hateful clank of their chains; he felt them cringe and grovel, and there rose within him a protest and a prophecy.
  • * 1904 , ,
    • Leclere was bent on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.
  • To shrink, tense or recoil, as in fear, disgust or embarrassment.
    • He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
  • * Bunyan
    • 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.
  • * 1917 , ,
    • 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.
  • (obsolete) To contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.

    Derived terms

    * cringeworthy

    See also

    * crouch * wince

    Anagrams

    *

    unsettling

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That makes one troubled or uneasy; disquieting or distressing.

    • Verb

    (head)

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The weakening of some previously established system or norm.
  • * 2013 , Krishna Sen, ?Maila Stivens, Gender and Power in Affluent Asia (page 19)
    • But reconstructing theory has proved more problematic than feminists might have hoped, even as their efforts played an important if sometimes overlooked part in post-modern unsettlings of theories in the West.