Flinching and cringing in distaste is the response of every Klingon to tribbles. Not so much cringing in fear, as squirming at the sight of the repellent parasites.Also, remember Lursa and B'Etor's reaction to the sight of Dr Beverly Crusher looming over Geordi in Star Trek: Generations? On Friday, 30 July 2021, 16:19:08 BST, Will Martin <willmartin2@mac.com> wrote: I think cringe also carries a reaction to extremely bad taste. Think the body language accompanying the use of {wejpuH}. Think of Kruge speaking of the Federation, with lots of little houses with white picket fences. Flinch definitely has more associations with fear relating to pain or reacting to the direct experience of pain. It covers a withdrawal from a decision. “He flinched,” is a legitimate expression of “He withdrew from the conflict.” The game of chicken tests who will flinch first (or both die because nobody flinched). And to add more confusion to the subtleties, I tend to think of “flinch” in reaction to pain, while cringe and wince tend to be more removed, either as empathy for others, like your reaction when you watch fail videos of people you know must have been seriously hurt and embarrassed, or in anticipation of predictable, but not yet experienced pain. - charghwI’ ‘utlh[ghaH, ghaH, -Daj] On Jul 30, 2021, at 9:49 AM, SuStel <sustel@trimboli.name> wrote: On 7/30/2021 9:38 AM, Lieven L. Litaer wrote: This question is more towards the English language, so maybe the requester of this word could explain what they were thinking. What exactly does "Wince, Cringe, Flinch" mean? Also the added definition on the wish list does not help me: "Reflexively recoil or shrink away". Where would I use this? Sogh qIpmeH HoD, ghopDaj pepDI' HoD, mur Sogh. When the captain raises his hand to hit the lieutenant, the lieutenant cringes. That is, the lieutenant backs off slightly and scrunches up a bit, possibly lifting their hands a little to ward off the blow, an instinctive reaction to an impending attack. Generally, cringing is negatively associated with cowardice, while flinching and wincing are more neutral, though they can still be negative if you flinch or wince at the wrong thing. Exception: you can cringe at something extremely embarrassing, and it's not considered a negative behavior. Flinching has more to do with instinctively trying to avoid a blow, while wincing is usually associated with your reaction to pain, whether physical or psychological. Those are my associations with the words as a native speaker of American English. -- SuStel http://trimboli.name _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org _______________________________________________ tlhIngan-Hol mailing list tlhIngan-Hol@lists.kli.org http://lists.kli.org/listinfo.cgi/tlhingan-hol-kli.org