different between anguish vs suspense

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?ng?-gw?sh, IPA^(key): /?æ?.?w??/

Etymology 1

From Middle English angwissh, anguishe, angoise, from Anglo-Norman anguise, anguisse, from Old French angoisse, from Latin angustia (“narrowness, scarcity, difficulty, distress”), from angustus (“narrow, difficult”), from angere (“to press together, cause pain, distress”). See angst, the Germanic cognate, and anger.

Noun

anguish (countable and uncountable, plural anguishes)

1. Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.
   • 1549, Hugh Latimer, "The Third Sermon Preached before King Edward VI:

     So, ye miserable people; you must go to God in anguishes, and make your prayer to him.

   • 1595/96, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Act V, sc. 1:

     Is there no play,

     To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, Fairie Queene, Book I, LIII:

     Love of your selfe, she saide, and deare constraint,

     Lets me not sleepe, but wast the wearie night

     In secret anguish and unpittied plaint,

     Whiles you in carelesse sleepe are drowned quight.

   • 1611, King James Version, Exodus 6:9:

     But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.

   • 1700, John Dryden, Fables, Ancient and Modern, "Cinyras and Myrrha":

     There, loathing Life, and yet of Death afraid,

     In Anguish of her Spirit, thus she pray'd.

   • 1708, John Philips, Cyder, A Poem in Two Books, Book I:

     May I the sacred pleasures know

     Of strictest amity, nor ever want

     A friend with whom I mutually may share

     Gladness and anguish ...

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 18:

     She took his trembling hand, and kissed it, and put it round her neck: she called him her John—her dear John—her old man—her kind old man; she poured out a hundred words of incoherent love and tenderness; her faithful voice and simple caresses wrought this sad heart up to an inexpressible delight and anguish, and cheered and solaced his over-burdened soul.

   • 1892, Walt Whitman, The Leaves of Grass, "Old War-Dreams":

     In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,

     Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable

     look,)

     Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,

     I dream, I dream, I dream.

   Synonyms: agony, calvary, cross, pang, torture, torment; see also Thesaurus:agony

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English angwischen, anguis(s)en, from Old French angoissier, anguissier, from the noun (see Etymology 1).

Verb

anguish (third-person singular simple present anguishes, present participle anguishing, simple past and past participle anguished)

1. (intransitive) To suffer pain.
   • c. 1900s, Kl. Knigge, Iceland Folk Song, traditional, Harmony: H. Ruland

     We’re leaving these shores for our time has come, the days of our youth must now end. The hearts bitter anguish, it burns for the home that we’ll never see again.

2. (transitive) To cause to suffer pain.

Translations

References

Further reading

• anguish in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• anguish in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Alternative forms

• suspence (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English suspense, suspence, from Anglo-Norman suspens (as in en suspens) and Old French suspens, from Latin susp?nsus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s??sp?ns/
• Rhymes: -?ns

Noun

suspense (usually uncountable, plural suspenses)

1. The condition of being suspended; cessation for a time.
2. the pleasurable emotion of anticipation and excitement regarding the outcome or climax of a book, film etc.
3. The unpleasant emotion of anxiety or apprehension in an uncertain situation.
   • 1656, John Denham, The Destruction of Troy

     Ten days the prophet in suspense remain'd.

4. (law) A temporary cessation of one's right; suspension, as when the rent or other profits of land cease by unity of possession of land and rent.

Derived terms

• suspenseful

Translations

Adjective

suspense (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Held or lifted up; held or prevented from proceeding.
2. (obsolete) Expressing, or proceeding from, suspense or doubt.

French

Etymology 1

Nominalisation of the feminine form of suspens.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sys.p??s/

Noun

suspense f (plural suspenses)

1. suspense (state of being suspended)

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English suspense, itself from Old French suspense. Doublet of suspens.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sys.p?ns/

Noun

suspense m (plural suspenses)

1. suspense (emotion; feeling)

Further reading

• “suspense” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Galician

Etymology

From French suspense, from English suspense.

Noun

suspense m (plural suspenses)

1. suspense
2. thriller

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English suspense.

Noun

suspense f (invariable)

1. suspense (all senses)

Latin

Participle

susp?nse

1. vocative masculine singular of susp?nsus

References

• suspense in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• suspense in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

Portuguese

Noun

suspense m (plural suspenses)

1. suspense (the excited anticipation of an outcome)
2. (fiction) thriller (a suspenseful, sensational genre of fiction)

Spanish

Etymology

From French suspense, from English suspense.

Noun

suspense m (plural suspenses)

1. (Spain) suspense

   Synonym: (Latin America) suspenso

2. thriller

Derived terms

• novela de suspense (“thriller”) (novel genre)
• película de suspense (“thriller”) (film genre)