different between quandary vs pinch

quandary

English

Etymology

16th century. Origin unknown; perhaps a dialectal corruption (simulating a word of Latin origin with suffix -ary) of wandreth (evil, plight, peril, adversity, difficulty), from Middle English wandreth, from Old Norse vandræði (difficulty, trouble), from vandr (difficult, requiring pains and care).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /?kw?n.d?.?i/, /?kw?n.d?i/
  • (Received Pronunciation, dated) IPA(key): /kw?n?d??.??/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /?kw?n.d?.?i/, /?kw?n.d?i/, /?kw?n-/
  • (General Australian) IPA(key): /?kw?n.d?.?i/, /?kw?n.d?i/
  • Hyphenation: quan?da?ry, quand?ary

Noun

quandary (plural quandaries)

  1. A state of not knowing what to decide; a state of difficulty or perplexity; a state of uncertainty, hesitation or puzzlement.
    Synonyms: perplexity, pickle, predicament, uncertainty
  2. A dilemma, a difficult decision or choice.
    Synonyms: dilemma; see also Thesaurus:dilemma
    • 1995, Robert Frost, Collected Poems, Prose & Plays, page 475
      To quote the oracle of Delphi, / Love thou thy neighbor as thyself, aye, / And hate him as thyself thou hatest. / There quandary is at its greatest.
    • 1995, Douglas N. Walton & Erik C. W. Krabbe, Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning, page 54
      But we may suppose that John has set his priorities in such a way that the quandary is spurious.
    • 2000, Carol Ann Strip & Gretchen Hirsch, Helping Gifted Children Soar, page 208
      What a difficult quandary for a bright, talented child!
    • 2004, Jennifer Traig, Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, page 181
      Then I would begin contemplating the next quandary: "Does the Torah say it's okay to portray a hooker, and is a heart of gold a mitigating factor?"

Translations

See also

  • doubt
  • indecision
  • dilemma

Further reading

  • quandary at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

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pinch

English

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (to pinch), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (to puncture, pinch), from possible merger of *puncti?re (a puncture, sting), from Latin puncti? (a puncture, prick) and *picc?re (to strike, sting), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (to pick, peck, prick).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /p?nt?/
  • Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)

  1. To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
    The children were scolded for pinching each other.
    This shoe pinches my foot.
  2. To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
  3. To squeeze between two objects.
  4. (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.
    Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
  5. (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
  6. (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
  7. (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
  8. (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
  9. (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)
    • 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper
      the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare
  10. To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
  11. (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.
    to be pinched for money
    • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War
      want of room [] which pincheth the whole nation
    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:
      The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.
  12. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
  13. (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
    • 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":
      Therefore who so them accuse
      Of any double entencion,
      To speake, rowne, other to muse,
      To pinch at their condicion,
      All is but false collusion,
      I dare rightwell the sothe express,
      They have no better protection,
      But shrowd them vnder doubleness.

Derived terms

  • pinch off
  • pinch out
  • pinch a loaf

Translations

Noun

pinch (plural pinches)

  1. The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
  2. A close compression of anything with the fingers.
    I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.
  3. A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
  4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
    • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:
      It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.
  5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
  6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
  7. (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
  8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
    • 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:
      It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.
  9. (slang) An arrest.

Derived terms

Descendants

  • ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)

Translations

pinch From the web:

  • what pinche means
  • what pinches a nerve
  • what pinches the sciatic nerve
  • what pincher bugs eat
  • what pinched nerve causes numbness in arm
  • what pinched nerve feels like
  • what pinched nerve causes numbness in fingers
  • what pinched nerve causes numbness in toes
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