Sigh vs Breathe - What's the difference?
sigh | breathe |
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.
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
‘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
To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
To experience an emotion associated with sighing.
To make a sound like sighing.
* Coleridge
* Tennyson
To exhale (the breath) in sighs.
* Shakespeare
To express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs.
* Shakespeare
* Hoole
(archaic) To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
* Prior
An expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.
To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases.
To take in needed gases and expel waste gases in a similar way.
:Fish have gills so they can breathe underwater.
To use (a gas) to sustain life.
:While life as we know it depends on oxygen, scientists have speculated that alien life forms might breathe chlorine or methane.
Figuratively, to live.
:I will not allow it, as long as I still breathe .
*(rfdate) Shakespeare
*:I am in health, I breathe .
*(rfdate) Sir Walter Scott
*:Breathes there a man with soul so dead?
To draw something into the lungs.
:Try not to breathe too much smoke.
To expel air from the lungs, exhale.
:If you breathe on a mirror, it will fog up.
To pass like breath; noiselessly or gently; to emanate; to blow gently.
:The wind breathes through the trees.
*(rfdate) Shakespeare
*:The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
*(rfdate) Byron
*:There breathes a living fragrance from the shore.
To give an impression of, to exude.
:The decor positively breathes classical elegance.
To whisper quietly.
:He breathed the words into her ear, but she understood them all.
To exchange gases with the environment.
:Garments made of certain new materials breathe well and keep the skin relatively dry during exercise.
To rest; to stop and catch one's breath.
*:
*:Thenne they lasshed to gyder many sad strokes / & tracyd and trauercyd now bakward / now sydelyng hurtlyng to gyders lyke two bores / & that same tyme they felle both grouelyng to the erthe / Thus they fought styll withoute ony reposynge two houres and neuer brethed
*(rfdate) Shakespeare
*:Well! breathe awhile, and then to it again!
To stop, to give (a horse) an opportunity to catch its breath.
:At higher altitudes you need to breathe your horse more often.
In intransitive terms the difference between sigh and breathe
is that sigh is to make a sound like sighing while breathe is to exchange gases with the environment.In transitive terms the difference between sigh and breathe
is that sigh is to express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs while breathe is to stop, to give a horse an opportunity to catch its breath.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.sigh
English
Noun
(en noun)Verb
(en verb)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.’}}
- He sighed deeply in his spirit.
- And the coming wind did roar more loud, / And the sails did sigh like sedge.
- The winter winds are wearily sighing .
- Never man sighed truer breath.
- They sighed forth proverbs.
- The gentle swain sighs back her grief.
- Ages to come, and men unborn, / Shall bless her name, and sigh her fate.
Interjection
(en interjection)- Sigh , I'm so bored at work today.
