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Terror vs Torment - What's the difference?

terror | torment |

As nouns the difference between terror and torment

is that terror is terror while torment is (obsolete) a catapult or other kind of war-engine.

As a verb torment is

to cause severe suffering to (stronger than to vex'' but weaker than ''to torture ).

terror

English

Alternative forms

* terrour (obsolete or hypercorrect)

Noun

  • (uncountable) Intense dread, fright, or fear.
  • (countable) Specific instance of being intensely terrified.
  • * 1794 , (William Godwin),
    • The terrors with which I was seizedwere extreme.
  • (uncountable) The action or quality of causing dread; terribleness, especially such qualities in narrative fiction.
  • * 1921', (Edith Birkhead), ''The tale of '''terror : a study of the Gothic romance
  • (countable) Something or someone that causes such fear.
  • * 1841 , (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
    • The terrors of the storm
  • *
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.}}

    Derived terms

    * terrorism * terrorist * terrorize, terrorized, terrorizing * reign of terror

    Related terms

    * terrible * terrific * terrify

    See also

    * alarm * fright * consternation * dread * dismay

    External links

    * * ----

    torment

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A catapult or other kind of war-engine.
  • Torture, originally as inflicted by an instrument of torture.
  • Any extreme pain, anguish or misery, either physical or mental.
    • He was bitter from the torments of the divorce system.
  • * Bible, Matthew iv. 24
    • They brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments .

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * tormentous

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cause severe suffering to (stronger than to vex'' but weaker than ''to torture. )
    • The child tormented the flies by pulling their wings off.
  • * 2013 , Phil McNulty, " Man City 4-1 Man Utd", BBC Sport , 22 September 2013:
    • Moyes, who never won a derby at Liverpool in 11 years as Everton manager, did not find the Etihad any more forgiving as City picked United apart in midfield, where Toure looked in a different class to United's £27.5m new boy Marouane Fellaini, and in defence as Aguero tormented Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand.

    Derived terms

    * tormentor