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Distress vs Tribulation - What's the difference?

distress | tribulation |

As nouns the difference between distress and tribulation

is that distress is (Cause of) discomfort while tribulation is any adversity; a trying period or event.

As a verb distress

is to cause strain or anxiety to someone.

As a proper noun Tribulation is

a relatively short period of time before the second coming where believers will experience worldwide persecution and be purified and strengthened by it.

distress

English

Noun

(-)
  • (Cause of) discomfort.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1833 , author=John Trusler , title=The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings , chapter=8 citation , passage=To heighten his distress , he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be able to surmount.}}
  • Serious danger.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1719 , author=Daniel Defoe , title=Robinson Crusoe , chapter=13 citation , passage=I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress , and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1759 , author=Voltaire , title=Candide , chapter=42 citation , passage=At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress .}}
  • (legal) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
  • (legal) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
  • * Spenser
    • If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.
  • * Blackstone
    • The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.

    Related terms

    * distrain * district

    Verb

    (es)
  • To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1827 , author=Stendhal , title=Armance , chapter=31 citation , passage=She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.}}
  • (legal) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
  • *
  • To treat an object, such as an antique, to give it an appearance of age.
    • She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.

    External links

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    tribulation

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Any adversity; a trying period or event.
  • * 1535 , , Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation , ch. 6:
    • For the blessed apostle himself in his sore tribulation', praying thrice unto God to take it away from him, was answered again by God (in a manner) that he was but a fool in asking that request, but that the help of God's grace in that '''tribulation''' to strengthen him was far better for him than to take that ' tribulation from him.
  • * 1847 , , Omoo , ch. 11:
    • Baltimore's tribulations were indeed sore; there was no peace for him day nor night.
  • * 1944 June 27, , Speech in Chicago, Illinois to the 23rd Republican National Convention:
    • It is youth who must inherit the tribulation , the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.
  • * 2009 Sept. 24, , " Kristina'': A New Musical from the ABBA Guys," ''New York Times (retrieved 12 March 2014):
    • Essentially stoic, passive characters, Kristina and the others triumph by surviving — by outliving their plagues and tribulations .

    External links

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