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Levity vs Dismay - What's the difference?

levity | dismay |

As nouns the difference between levity and dismay

is that levity is lightness of manner or speech, frivolity while dismay is a sudden or complete loss of courage and firmness in the face of trouble or danger; overwhelming and disabling terror; a sinking of the spirits; consternation.

As a verb dismay is

to disable with alarm or apprehensions; to depress the spirits or courage of; to deprive of firmness and energy through fear; to daunt; to appall; to terrify.

levity

English

Noun

(en-noun)
  • Lightness of manner or speech, frivolity.
  • (obsolete) Lack of steadiness.
  • The state or quality of being light, buoyancy.
  • * F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • * Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I had feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity...
  • * Robert Montgomery Bird:
  • * 1869 Mary Somerville, On Molecular and Microscopic Science 1.1.12:
    • Hydrogen ... rises in the air on account of its levity .
  • (countable) A lighthearted or frivolous act.
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    • Antonyms

    * (l)

    References

    dismay

    English

    Noun

    (-)
  • A sudden or complete loss of courage and firmness in the face of trouble or danger; overwhelming and disabling terror; a sinking of the spirits; consternation.
  • Condition fitted to dismay; ruin.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To disable with alarm or apprehensions; to depress the spirits or courage of; to deprive of firmness and energy through fear; to daunt; to appall; to terrify.
  • * Bible, Josh. i. 9
    • Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed .
  • * Fairfax
    • What words be these? What fears do you dismay ?
  • To render lifeless; to subdue; to disquiet.
  • * Spenser
    • Do not dismay yourself for this.
  • To take dismay or fright; to be filled with dismay.
  • * 1592 , , III. iii. 1:
    • Dismay not, princes, at this accident,