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Insist vs Sigh - What's the difference?

insist | sigh | Related terms |

As verbs the difference between insist and sigh

is that insist is to hold up a claim emphatically while sigh is to inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like.

As a noun sigh is

a deep and prolonged audible inspiration or respiration of air, as when fatigued, frustrated, grieved, or relieved; the act of sighing.

As an interjection sigh is

an expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.

insist

English

Alternative forms

* ensist

Verb

(en verb)
  • To hold up a claim emphatically.
  • (I am defending her; see a similar example in the context below for comparison.)
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud,
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist . Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
  • To demand continually that something happen or be done.
  • To stand (on); to rest (upon); to lean (upon).
  • * 1709 , Venturus Mandey, Synopsis Mathematica Universalis
  • Angles likewise which insist on the Diameter, are all Right Angles.

    sigh

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A deep and prolonged audible inspiration or respiration of air, as when fatigued, frustrated, grieved, or relieved; the act of sighing.
  • Figuratively, a manifestation of grief; a lament.
  • (Cockney rhyming slang) A person who is bored.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=5 citation , passage=A waiter brought his aperitif, which was a small scotch and soda, and as he sipped it gratefully he sighed .
       ‘Civilized,’ he said to Mr. Campion. ‘Humanizing.’ […] ‘Cigars and summer days and women in big hats with swansdown face-powder, that's what it reminds me of.’}}
  • To lament; to grieve.
  • * Bible, Mark viii. 12
  • He sighed deeply in his spirit.
  • To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
  • To experience an emotion associated with sighing.
  • To make a sound like sighing.
  • * Coleridge
  • And the coming wind did roar more loud, / And the sails did sigh like sedge.
  • * Tennyson
  • The winter winds are wearily sighing .
  • To exhale (the breath) in sighs.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Never man sighed truer breath.
  • To express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs.
  • * Shakespeare
  • They sighed forth proverbs.
  • * Hoole
  • The gentle swain sighs back her grief.
  • (archaic) To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
  • * Prior
  • Ages to come, and men unborn, / Shall bless her name, and sigh her fate.

    Interjection

    (en interjection)
  • An expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.
  • Sigh , I'm so bored at work today.

    Anagrams

    *