different between worry vs tension

English

Etymology

From Middle English worien, werien, wirien, wirwen, wyry?en (“to choke, strangle”), from Old English wyr?an, from Proto-Germanic *wurgijan?, from Proto-Indo-European *wer??- (“bind, squeeze”). Cognate with Dutch worgen, wurgen, German würgen. Compare Latin urgere (“to press, push”), Sanskrit ????? (v?hati, “to tear out, pluck”), Lithuanian ver?žti (“to string; squeeze”), Russian (poetic) ?????????? (otverzát?, “to open”, literally “to untie”). Related to wring.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General New Zealand, General Australian) IPA^(key): /?w??i/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?w??i/, /?w?i/
• (General New Zealand, General Australian, non-standard) IPA^(key): /?w??i/
• (West Country, nonstandard) IPA^(key): /?w???i/
• (accents without the "Hurry-furry" merger)
• (accents with the "Hurry-furry" merger)
• Rhymes: -?ri

Homophone: wurry

Verb

worry (third-person singular simple present worries, present participle worrying, simple past and past participle worried)

1. (intransitive) To be troubled; to give way to mental anxiety or doubt.

2. (transitive) Disturb the peace of mind of; afflict with mental agitation or distress.

3. (transitive) To harass; to irritate or distress.

4. (transitive) To seize or shake by the throat, especially of a dog or wolf.
5. (transitive) To touch repeatedly, to fiddle with.
   • 1997, David Sedaris, "A Plague of Tics", Naked, page 15:

     So what if I wanted to touch my nose to the windshield? Who was it hurting? Why was it that he could repeatedly worry his change and bite his lower lip without the threat of punishment?

   • 2002, Masha Hamilton, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, page 272:

     No stories, no arguments. He just worries his prayer beads.

6. (transitive, obsolete, Scotland) To strangle.
   • 1891, Journal of Jurisprudence and Scottish Law Magazine (1891), Execution of the Judgment of Death, page 397:

     We read (Law's Memor. Pref. lix.) that "one John Brugh, a notorious warlock (wizard) in the parochin of Fossoquhy, by the space of thirty-six years, was worried at a stake and burned, 1643."

Synonyms

• (trouble mentally): fret

Derived terms

• beworry
• worried

Translations

Noun

worry (countable and uncountable, plural worries)

1. A strong feeling of anxiety.

2. An instance or cause of such a feeling.

3. A person who causes worry.

Derived terms

• worrisome
• worryful
• worryless

Translations

Scots

Verb

worry

1. (transitive) To strangle.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French tension, from Latin tensi?, tensi?nem.

Pronunciation

• enPR: t?n?-sh?n, IPA^(key): /?t?n??n/
• Rhymes: -?n??n
• Hyphenation: ten?sion

Noun

tension (countable and uncountable, plural tensions)

1. The condition of being held in a state between two or more forces, which are acting in opposition to each other.
2. Psychological state of being tense.
3. A feeling of nervousness, excitement, or fear that is created in a movie, book, etc.; suspense.
4. (physics, engineering) State of an elastic object which is stretched in a way which increases its length.
5. (physics, engineering) Force transmitted through a rope, string, cable, or similar object (used with prepositions on, in, or of, e.g., "The tension in the cable is 1000 N", to convey that the same magnitude of force applies to objects attached to both ends).
6. (physics, engineering) Voltage. Usually only the terms low tension, high tension, and extra-high tension, and the abbreviations LT, HT, and EHT are used. They are not precisely defined; LT is normally a few volts, HT a few hundreds of volts, and EHT thousands of volts.

Derived terms

Related terms

• tensile

Translations

Verb

tension (third-person singular simple present tensions, present participle tensioning, simple past and past participle tensioned)

1. To place an object in tension, to pull or place strain on.

Translations

Anagrams

• Sonnite, intones, neonist, noneist, sention

Esperanto

Noun

tension

1. accusative singular of tensio

Finnish

Noun

tension

1. Genitive singular form of tensio.

Anagrams

• onnesti

French

Etymology

From Middle French tension, borrowed from Latin tensi?, tensi?nem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??.sj??/

Noun

tension f (plural tensions)

1. tension
2. blood pressure

3. voltage

Derived terms

Related terms

• tendre

Descendants

• ? Romanian: tensiune

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• entions, tenions

Occitan

Pronunciation

Noun

tension f (plural tensions)

1. tension