Startle vs Electrify - What's the difference?
startle | electrify | Related terms |
(label) To move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start.
* (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
(label) To excite by sudden alarm, surprise, or apprehension; to frighten suddenly and not seriously; to alarm; to surprise.
* (John Locke) (1632-1705)
* 1896 , (Joseph Conrad), "(An Outcast of the Islands)"
* , title=Say Cheese and Die, Again!
, passage=The high voice in the night air startled me. Without thinking, I started to run. Then stopped. I spun around, my heart heaving against my chest. And saw a boy. About my age.}}
To deter; to cause to deviate.
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title=
, passage=As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.}}
A sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger.
* {{quote-book
, year=1845
, author=George Hooker Colton, James Davenport Whelpley
, title=The American review
, chapter=1
, passage=The figure of a man heaving in sight amidst these wide solitudes, always causes a startle and thrill of expectation and doubt, similar to the feeling produced by the announcement of " a strange sail ahead" on shipboard, during a long voyage.}}
To communicate or supply electricity to; to charge with electricity.
To cause electricity to pass through; to affect by electricity; to give an electric shock to.
To excite suddenly and violently, especially by something highly delightful or inspiriting; to thrill.
* Macaulay
* George Eliot
* '>citation
To become electric.
to adapt (a home, farm, village, city, industry, railroad) for electric power
In intransitive terms the difference between startle and electrify
is that startle is to move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start while electrify is to become electric.In transitive terms the difference between startle and electrify
is that startle is to excite by sudden alarm, surprise, or apprehension; to frighten suddenly and not seriously; to alarm; to surprise while electrify is to excite suddenly and violently, especially by something highly delightful or inspiriting; to thrill.As a noun startle
is a sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger.startle
English
Verb
(startl)- Why shrinks the soul / Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
- The supposition, at least, that angels do sometimes assume bodies need not startle us.
- Nothing could startle her, make her scold or make her cry. She did not complain, she did not rebel.
- (Clarendon)
“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./4/2
Synonyms
* (to move suddenly) start * (to excite suddenly) alarm, frighten, scare, surprise * (deter) deterDerived terms
* (l)Noun
(en noun)Derived terms
* (l) * (l)See also
* (l)Anagrams
*electrify
English
(Webster 1913)Verb
(en-verb)- to electrify a jar
- to electrify a limb, or the body
- This patriotic sentiment electrified the audience.
- If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in defiance of the writ of habeas corpus the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news.
- Try whether she could electrify Mr. Grandcourt by mentioning it to him at table.