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Wring vs Wrought - What's the difference?

wring | wrought |

As verbs the difference between wring and wrought

is that wring is to squeeze or twist tightly so that liquid is forced out while wrought is past tense of work.

As an adjective wrought is

having been worked or prepared somehow.

wring

English

Verb

  • To squeeze or twist tightly so that liquid is forced out.
    • You must wring your wet jeans before hanging them out to dry.
  • * Bible, Judg. vi. 38
    • He rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Your overkindness doth wring tears from me.
  • To obtain by force.
    • The police said they would wring the truth out of that heinous criminal.
  • To hold tightly and press or twist.
    • Some of the patients waiting in the dentist's office were wringing their hands nervously.
    He said he'd wring my neck if I told his girlfriend.
    He wrung my hand enthusiastically when he found out we were related.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • The king began to find where his shoe did wring him.
  • * Bible, Leviticus i. 15
    • The priest shall bring it [a dove] unto the altar, and wring off his head
  • To writhe; to twist, as if in anguish.
  • To kill and animal, usually poultry, by breaking its neck by twisting.
  • * Shakespeare
    • 'Tis all men's office to speak patience / To those that wring under the load of sorrow.
  • To pain; to distress; to torment; to torture.
  • * Clarendon
    • Too much grieved and wrung by an uneasy and strait fortune.
  • * Addison
    • Didst thou taste but half the griefs / That wring my soul, thou couldst not talk thus coldly.
  • To distort; to pervert; to wrest.
  • * Whitgift
    • How dare men thus wring the Scriptures?
  • To subject to extortion; to afflict, or oppress, in order to enforce compliance.
  • * Shakespeare
    • To wring the widow from her 'customed right.
  • * Hayward
    • The merchant adventurers have been often wronged and wringed to the quick.
  • (nautical) To bend or strain out of its position.
    • to wring a mast

    References

    * * English irregular verbs ----

    wrought

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having been worked or prepared somehow.
    • Is that fence made out of wrought iron?

    Antonyms

    * unwrought

    Derived terms

    * wrought iron * wrought-up

    Verb

    (head)
  • (work)
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=28, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= High and wet , passage=Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale. The early, intense onset of the monsoon on June 14th swelled rivers, washing away roads, bridges, hotels and even whole villages. Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.}}

    Usage notes

    * In modern English, wrought is usually not interchangeable with worked, the more common contemporary past and past participle of work. * Wrought often lends a more archaic flavor. * The separation of wrought'' from ''work'' has also occurred because while ''work'' can be either intransitive or transitive, it is more commonly intransitive, and ''wrought is transitive only. * Because the phrase "work havoc" has become uncommon in modern English, its past tense "wrought havoc" is sometimes misinterpreted as being a past tense of "wreak havoc".

    Derived terms

    * overwrought English irregular past participles English irregular simple past forms