Startle vs Flinch - What's the difference?
startle | flinch |
(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.}}
A reflexive jerking away.
To make a sudden, involuntary movement in response to a (usually negative) stimulus.
* John Locke
To dodge (a question), to avoid an unpleasant task or duty
To let the foot slip from a ball, when attempting to give a tight croquet.
As verbs the difference between startle and flinch
is that startle is (label) to move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start while flinch is to make a sudden, involuntary movement in response to a (usually negative) stimulus.As nouns the difference between startle and flinch
is that startle is a sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger while flinch is a reflexive jerking away.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
*flinch
English
Noun
(es)- My eye doctor hates the flinch I have every time he tries to get near my eyes.
Verb
- A child, by a constant course of kindness, may be accustomed to bear very rough usage without flinching or complaining.