Startle vs Stagger - What's the difference?
startle | stagger |
(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.}}
An unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing, as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion; vertigo; -- often in the plural; as, the stagger of a drunken man.
A disease of horses and other animals, attended by reeling, unsteady gait or sudden falling; as, parasitic staggers; apoplectic or sleepy staggers.
bewilderment; perplexity.
In motorsport, the difference in circumference between the left and right tires on a racing vehicle. It is used on oval tracks to make the car turn better in the corners.
sway unsteadily, reel, or totter
# In standing or walking, to sway from one side to the other as if about to fall; to stand or walk unsteadily; to reel or totter.
#* Dryden
# To cause to reel or totter.
#* Shakespeare
# To cease to stand firm; to begin to give way; to fail.
#* Addison
doubt, waver, be shocked
# To begin to doubt and waver in purposes; to become less confident or determined; to hesitate.
#* Bible, Rom. iv. 20
# To cause to doubt and waver; to make to hesitate; to make less steady or confident; to shock.
#* Howell
#* Burke
Multiple groups doing the same thing in a uniform fashion, but starting at different, evenly-spaced, times or places (attested from 1856
# To arrange (a series of parts) on each side of a median line alternately, as the spokes of a wheel or the rivets of a boiler seam.
# To arrange similar objects such that each is ahead or above and to one side of the next.
# To schedule in intervals.
As verbs the difference between startle and stagger
is that startle is (label) to move suddenly, or be excited, on feeling alarm; to start while stagger is sway unsteadily, reel, or totter.As nouns the difference between startle and stagger
is that startle is a sudden motion or shock caused by an unexpected alarm, surprise, or apprehension of danger while stagger is an unsteady movement of the body in walking or standing, as if one were about to fall; a reeling motion; vertigo; -- often in the plural; as, the stagger of a drunken man.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
*stagger
English
Noun
(en noun)Stock Car Racing magazine article on stagger, February 2009
Verb
(en verb)- She began to stagger across the room.
- Deep was the wound; he staggered with the blow.
- The powerful blow of his opponent's fist staggered the boxer.
- That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire / That staggers thus my person.
- The enemy staggers .
- He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.
- He will stagger the committee when he presents his report.
- Whosoever will read the story of this war will find himself much staggered .
- Grants to the house of Russell were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility.
Etymology] in [[:w:Online Etymology Dictionary, Online Etymology Dictionary]).
- We will stagger the starting positions for the race on the oval track.
- We will stagger the run so the faster runners can go first, then the joggers.