What's the difference between absurd and loony?

Absurd


Definition:

  • (a.) Contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and fiatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory; nonsensical; ridiculous; as, an absurd person, an absurd opinion; an absurd dream.
  • (n.) An absurdity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But Steven Brounstein, a lawyer for one of the officers, said: 'For the DA to be equating this case to a drive-by shooting is absurd.
  • (2) Historically, what made SNL’s campaign coverage so necessary was its ability to highlight the subtle absurdities of the election and exaggerate the ridiculous.
  • (3) In any halfway-awake western nation, and, to be frank, in many reaches of British national life, this would be considered an amateurish absurdity, a guarantee of eventual failure.
  • (4) But the same court also just refused to hear an appeal of a Minnesota woman who's been ordered to pay more than $220,000 for downloading two-dozen songs – a testament to Congress' gift to Hollywood and its allies in the form of absurdly stiff penalties for minor infringement.
  • (5) I think the heart of good comedy really lives in truth and reacting to the absurdities, hypocrisies, abuses of power in the world.” Late night television is a no longer a glass of warm milk before bed, it’s a lunch buffet And as TV viewership declines and internet virality becomes as important as real-time eyeballs, cable networks might find that topical comedy is a smart, cost-effective way to grab cross-platform attention.
  • (6) It might seem absurd, but she also fretted about the horrendous poll tax bills received by people she knew, people she knew couldn't pay.
  • (7) He would have seen the absurdity in a chancellor admitting that his sums are so badly out that Britain will borrow more than double this year than the £37bn he originally promised – and claiming that as a triumph.
  • (8) The idea that opposition to the renewal of Trident is an extreme policy confined to the British left is absurd.
  • (9) SC, Manchester Spark Energy, one of Britain's smaller electricity suppliers, failed to notice that your bill was absurd.
  • (10) British officials said it was absurd that at one point Merkel seemed to want to remove most references to the eurozone crisis from the communique.
  • (11) Harry Kane, reminding everyone how absurd it was to think his confidence might be broken, may just have to accept this will not be a night that is remembered for his goal.
  • (12) Karl Habsburg-Lothringen supported his cousin's action: "The Habsburg law is absurd, there's nothing else to be said about it.
  • (13) In fact, the body of evidence about how much it matters is mushrooming, so that it seems almost absurd to anyone who knows anything about children's development that we still think that a baby's physical health at the birth is all that matters.
  • (14) Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling breached all those, absurdly calling objectors 'job snobs'.
  • (15) Last month, along with Slovenia, Croatia and non-EU members Serbia and Macedonia, Austria – which has rejected Brussels’ criticism of its policy as “absurd” – imposed strict new restrictions, including a daily cap on the number of asylum seekers and migrants they would allow to enter their territory.
  • (16) Absurdly, the shops lack local staples – sugar, milk, flour – but are well stocked with subsidised imports such as single-malt whisky and Italian panettone.
  • (17) The idea that human breastmilk may not be good enough for human babies is clearly absurd.
  • (18) The woman snaps out of bed and opens her eyes, absurdly conscious and alive, wonderfully lucid.
  • (19) We are talking here about the absurd.” Ah, the absurd.
  • (20) Each sentence seems more absurd than the last until you are finally and irredeemably overwhelmed by its relentless meaningful meaninglessness.

Loony


Definition:

  • (a.) See Luny.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) His initial instinct – that the party was full of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” – had much to be said for it, but did nothing to stop Ukip’s march.
  • (2) David Cameron described them as "a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists".
  • (3) This is not the Monster Raving Loony Party; he recoils at the very suggestion.
  • (4) But before long, Hodge had gone into local politics, getting elected to what was then considered a “loony left” council in Islington that raised the red flag and had a bust of Lenin in the town hall.
  • (5) It was London, and our loony left ideas about women’s rights, racial justice and LGBT issues which were judged to have lost Labour the 1987 general election.
  • (6) Later in this piece, I’ll quote Jim again, and again he’ll sound nuts, but all I can say here is that when you spend 90 minutes next to someone, you can gauge their level of loony, and Jim was merely a low-grade crank – not unlike that certain uncle in any family who’s fun to be around but who holds strange views about, say, water fluoridation.
  • (7) If I was on my own and it was all swirling around my head, I’d have been loony.” 'There's things I said 30 years ago where I think I have must have been out of my mind' Did he ever feel out of his depth?
  • (8) In the St Ives ward of Cambridgeshire county council, Labour came sixth behind two Conservatives, two Liberal Democrats and Lord Toby Jug of the Official Monster Raving Loony party.
  • (9) In 2006, much to Ukip's fury, Cameron famously called them a party of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" (weirdly, over the weekend, the Downing Street press office seemed to retract at least the third of these suggestions, only to un-retract it).
  • (10) So where once David Cameron called Ukip a bunch of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" , now his party seeks to outbid them with weekly announcements of benefit and immigration crackdowns.
  • (11) Byelection in numbers Mike Kane , Labour, 13,261 John Bickley , Ukip, 4,301 Reverend Daniel Critchlow , Conservative, 3,479 Mary Di Mauro , Lib Dem, 1,176 Nigel Woodcock , Green party, 748 Eddy O'Sullivan , BNP, 708 Captain Chaplington-Smythe , Monster Raving Loony, 288 Turnout: 28%
  • (12) Thames river pageants have always been a mixture of the grand and the loony, and this one looks like it is going to have elements of complete lunacy.
  • (13) This election has its fair share of cranks, the obligatory Monster Raving Loonies, a guy campaigning to save local pubs (to give the full triumvirate of endangered pleasures, it's the Beer, Baccy and Crumpets party).
  • (14) I’ve experienced this with studios where they get very frightened of what you might be doing – is Michael Eisner here?” he asked, name-checking the former Disney head who Depp claims resisted his initial loony portrayal of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
  • (15) It is easy to mock privilege-checking, with its inferences of loony leftiness and pulsating liberal guilt.
  • (16) Because after a wobbly start, complimenting the Russian hosts as "not that bad", precisely the type of behaviour the great British public had come not to expect from Terry who compared the 2007 winner "to an angry looking Janette Krankie" and described Bosnia-Herzegovina's entry as "the four brides of Frankenstein and a loony with a clothes line", Norton found his stride.
  • (17) Chemi Shalev, Haaretz Obama posed the kinds of questions that are hardly asked aloud any more in the Israeli mainstream, swamped as it is in a steady stream of jingoistic, rightwing rhetoric, associated as it has become with people who are portrayed as loony liberals and self-hating leftists.
  • (18) Tebbit said his party was still paying the price for David Cameron's decision to brand Ukip supporters "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" eight years ago.
  • (19) Full results of the 2014 Newark byelection Robert Jenrick (C) 17,431 (45.03%, -8.82%) Roger Helmer (Ukip) 10,028 (25.91%, +22.09%) Michael Payne (Lab) 6,842 (17.68%, -4.65%) Paul Baggaley (Ind) 1,891 (4.89%) David Kirwan (Green) 1,057 (2.73%) David Watts (LD) 1,004 (2.59%, -17.41%) Nick The Flying Brick (Loony) 168 (0.43%) Andy Hayes (Ind) 117 (0.30%) David Bishop (BP Elvis) 87 (0.22%) Dick Rodgers (Stop Banks) 64 (0.17%) Lee Woods (Pat Soc) 18 (0.05%) C maj 7,403 (19.13%) 15.46% swing C to UKIP Electorate 73,486; Turnout 38,707 (52.67%, -18.69%) Newark results in the 2010 general election Con: 27,590 Lab: 11,438 Lib Dem: 10,246 Ukip: 1,954 Con majority: 16,152 Turnout: 71.4%
  • (20) Full result (with vote share and change since 2010 in brackets) George Galloway (Respect) 18,341 (55.89%, +52.83%) Imran Hussain (Labour) 8,201 (24.99%, -20.36%) Jackie Whiteley (Conservative) 2,746 (8.37%, -22.78%) Jeanette Sunderland (Liberal Democrat) 1,505 (4.59%, -7.08%) Sonja McNally (UKIP) 1,085 (3.31%, +1.31%) Dawud Islam (Green) 481 (1.47%, -0.85%) Neil Craig (Democratic Nationalists) 344 (1.05%) Howling Laud Hope (Monster Raving Loony Party) 111 (0.34%) • This article was amended on 30 March 2012.