different between torment vs annoy

English

Etymology

From Middle English torment, from Old French torment, from Latin tormentum (“something operated by twisting”), from torquere (“to twist”).

Pronunciation

• (noun) IPA^(key): /?t??(?)m?nt/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /t??(?)?m?nt/

Noun

torment (countable and uncountable, plural torments)

1. (obsolete) A catapult or other kind of war-engine.
2. Torture, originally as inflicted by an instrument of torture.
3. Any extreme pain, anguish or misery, either physical or mental.

   He was bitter from the torments of the divorce.

   • They brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:pain

Derived terms

• tormentous

Translations

Verb

torment (third-person singular simple present torments, present participle tormenting, simple past and past participle tormented)

1. (transitive) 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

Translations

Middle English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French torment, from Latin tormentum.

Noun

torment (plural torments)

1. torment (suffering, pain)

Descendants

• English: torment

Middle French

Alternative forms

• tourment

Etymology

From Old French torment, from Latin tormentum.

Noun

torment m (plural torments)

1. torment; suffering; anguish

Old French

Alternative forms

• turment

Etymology

From Latin tormentum.

Noun

torment m (oblique plural tormenz or tormentz, nominative singular tormenz or tormentz, nominative plural torment)

1. torture
2. (figuratively, by extension) suffering; torment

Descendants

• Middle English: torment (borrowing)
  • English: torment
• Middle French: torment, tourment
  • French: tourment

References

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

Old Occitan

Etymology

From Latin tormentum.

Noun

torment m (nominative singular torments)

1. suffering; torment

Descendants

• Catalan: turment
• Occitan: torment

English

Etymology

From Middle English annoien, anoien, enoien, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman anuier, Old French enuier (“to molest, harm, tire”), from Late Latin inodi? (“cause aversion, make hateful”, verb), from the phrase in odi? (“hated”), from Latin odium (“hatred”). Doublet of ennui. Displaced native Middle English grillen (“to annoy, irritate”), from Old English grillan (see grill).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n??/
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

annoy (third-person singular simple present annoys, present participle annoying, simple past and past participle annoyed)

1. (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
   • 1691, Matthew Prior, Pastoral to Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely

     Say, what can more our tortured souls annoy / Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy?

2. (intransitive) To do something to upset or anger someone; to be troublesome.
3. (transitive) To molest; to harm; to injure.

   to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade

   • tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them

Synonyms

• (to disturb or irritate) bother, bug, hassle, irritate, pester, nag, irk
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• please
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Related terms

Translations

Noun

annoy (plural annoys)

1. (now rare, literary) A feeling of discomfort or vexation caused by what one dislikes.
   • 1532 (first printing), Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose:

     I merveyle me wonder faste / How ony man may lyve or laste / In such peyne and such brennyng, / [...] In such annoy contynuely.

   • c. 1610, John Fletcher, “Sleep”:

     We that suffer long annoy / Are contented with a thought / Through an idle fancy wrought: / O let my joys have some abiding!
2. (now rare, literary) That which causes such a feeling.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, King Rchard III, IV.2:

     Sleepe in Peace, and wake in Ioy, / Good Angels guard thee from the Boares annoy [...].

   • 1872, Robert Browning, "Fifine at the Fair, V:

     The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, / The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy [...].

Synonyms

• (both senses) annoyance

Translations

References

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

Anagrams

• Yonan, anyon, noyan, yanno