What's the difference between airy and visionary?

Airy


Definition:

  • (a.) Consisting of air; as, an airy substance; the airy parts of bodies.
  • (a.) Relating or belonging to air; high in air; aerial; as, an airy flight.
  • (a.) Open to a free current of air; exposed to the air; breezy; as, an airy situation.
  • (a.) Resembling air; thin; unsubstantial; not material; airlike.
  • (a.) Relating to the spirit or soul; delicate; graceful; as, airy music.
  • (a.) Without reality; having no solid foundation; empty; trifling; visionary.
  • (a.) Light of heart; vivacious; sprightly; flippant; superficial.
  • (a.) Having an affected manner; being in the habit of putting on airs; affectedly grand.
  • (a.) Having the light and aerial tints true to nature.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When Philip Roth accepted the biennial International Booker prize honouring some 60 years of his fiction, from Goodbye, Columbus to Nemesis , he sat at a wooden table in the studio adjoining his airy Connecticut retreat looking as much like a retired priest, or judge, as the Grand Old Man of American letters, pushing 79.
  • (2) All of which makes it curious to find the film's stars abruptly reunited in the airy limbo of a Paris hotel, just south of the Arc de Triomphe.
  • (3) It seemed to me watching the film that the concept of the cloud was another great piece of airy obfuscation on the part of the internet corporations, who like to peddle the childlike and the playful in the way that banks used to flog you credit cards called Smile and Egg and Marbles and Goldfish, to encourage you not to think too hard about the small print (what could possibly go wrong?).
  • (4) The airy, whitewashed restaurant is tasteful, but still a local joint.
  • (5) They ranged from the “hmm” to the blatant to the eye-wateringly awful: ‘Hair twirling’ I recall once the suggestion that I ask a question of another team, in a very airy and innocent manner, hair-twirling and all, to try and get a more favourable answer than previously.
  • (6) Snare describes the portrait quite clearly: the young Charles with his large liquid eyes and pale face, appearing in three-quarter view without rigidity or outline, the painting as airy as mist (and the prince too young for Van Dyck, who only portrayed Charles in his 30s).
  • (7) On the inside it is cream coloured, airy and slightly chewy.
  • (8) Perhaps her airy way of describing this vast archive, withheld in breach of the spirit of the Public Record Act of 1958, had something to do with embarrassment.
  • (9) People around, young people in general can see what engineering is and the fact that it is no longer a mucky, oily, grimy place to work but it is a light, airy, clean environment," he said.
  • (10) However, Miliband's airy rhetoric leaves gaping holes for the Tories to fill with their own version of what a Labour government is about: bankrupting the country, ramping up debt, subsidising dissolute scroungers, opening the borders to mass immigration.
  • (11) Today is busy enough, with herds of small people from a vast range of ethnic backgrounds – the area is one of the most diverse in the country – crowding around the fold-out tables in a bright, airy hall just off the reception area.
  • (12) In an airy white blouse, art gallery owner Dasha Zhukova poses serenely on a chair, in a photograph taken for a Russian fashion website.
  • (13) The second, of course, is the voyeuristic pleasure the camera takes in the delicacies: the shot of a spoon plunging through the soft, airy volume of a chocolate souffle, for example.
  • (14) Punk often sneered at "art" as airy-fairy, bourgeois self-indulgence, but its ranks were full of art-school graduates and this artiness blossomed with the sound, design and stage presentation of bands such as Wire and Talking Heads.
  • (15) No more so than in the airy officers of the consultancy firm Marketing Greece.
  • (16) In his airy new office, Cable says his views have evolved, but refuses to sit in the quirky modern chair shipped in by his predecessor, Lord Mandelson.
  • (17) But she struck me as being very airy-fairy, not the kind of crisp and to-the-point person I was after.
  • (18) And it is this that has brought us here today, to Science, the airy central London headquarters of Hirst's art and business empire.
  • (19) He pauses, looking at the assembled Kurds, Iraqis, Libyans, Bosnians, Serbs, Mexicans, Americans and others in front of him, gathered in the airy auditorium of the Peace Palace in The Hague.
  • (20) Thoughtful speeches on rehabilitating recidivists who wreck communities were reduced to jokes about hugging hoodies, while attempts to debate rising levels of depression, inadequate care and family breakdown were mocked as an Old Etonian's airy-fairy talk of happiness.

Visionary


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to a visions or visions; characterized by, appropriate to, or favorable for, visions.
  • (a.) Affected by phantoms; disposed to receive impressions on the imagination; given to reverie; apt to receive, and act upon, fancies as if they were realities.
  • (a.) Existing in imagination only; not real; fanciful; imaginary; having no solid foundation; as, visionary prospect; a visionary scheme or project.
  • (n.) One whose imagination is disturbed; one who sees visions or phantoms.
  • (n.) One whose imagination overpowers his reason and controls his judgment; an unpractical schemer; one who builds castles in the air; a daydreamer.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) That is what needs to happen for this company, which started out as a rebellious presence in the business, determined to get credit for its creative visionaries.
  • (2) A "visionary leader," said Tony Blair; "one of the greatest leaders of our time," echoed Bill Clinton.
  • (3) Such visionary people have a vital role to play in helping the world to find the strength needed to address its problems.
  • (4) It was estimated at the roundtable that 25% of GPs who take on commissioning responsibility do so not because they are "visionaries", but because they are looking for new business opportunities, a contributor said.
  • (5) But the voters were unimpressed with both leaders’ “vision” – only 31% thought Abbott was “visionary” and 30% thought Shorten was.
  • (6) The visionary statesman of the 2009 Cairo speech failed to seize the opportunity of the Arab spring, especially in Egypt, where well over $1bn in aid gave the US real leverage with Egypt’s now again dominant, repressive military.
  • (7) His once-visionary keywords have grotesque afterlives: Big Brother is a TV franchise to make celebrities of nobodies and Room 101 a light-entertainment show on BBC2 currently hosted by Frank Skinner for celebrities to witter about stuff that gets their goat.
  • (8) His visionary prospectus was for nations to come together to underpin global prosperity and thus freedom – and for which a single currency was an indispensable pillar.
  • (9) Tate Modern, London, 16 October to 9 March, tate.org.uk Australia The complex art traditions of this remarkable continent – from Aboriginal dreamings and immigrant Romantic painters to the visionary Sidney Nolan – interweave in what promises to be a compelling epic spanning centuries of landscape and myth.
  • (10) He called on ministers last week to stop the "madness" of fast food outlets opening near schools and for a "visionary" to lead a renewed drive against obesity.
  • (11) And then the retailers come along and – look, most retailers are not visionaries.
  • (12) Museveni seems to have suddenly decided that human rights are an import from the west that cannot be tolerated; and that democracy is compatible with a politician holding a life presidency – provided the person in power is a visionary like him.
  • (13) Last year it won an award from Visionary , the membership organisation for local independent charities that support blind and partially sighted people across the UK.
  • (14) Visionary language is rarely heard from pro-Europeans these days; attempts to cast the EU as a morally based endeavour risk ridicule and scorn.
  • (15) Until there is genuine political leadership on this issue the system will remain failing.” The prime minister courted what he called the “visionary” Kids Company during his mission to detoxify the Tory party while in opposition, and cited it in his infamous “hug a hoodie” speech in 2006 as an exemplar of the type of public service he wanted to see – one which concentrated on “emotional quality” rather than hitting bureaucratic targets.
  • (16) It is the bold agenda against the timid one; the visionaries against those who believe Labour can limp home with a few safe offerings that can fit safely on the back of a pledge card.
  • (17) The chancellor's habit of letting reason triumph over visionary impulses and Kohl-type breakaways is clear to see.
  • (18) Why the Victorians managed to be so visionary is not entirely clear, but it had something to do with the confidence of an age of discovery both in science and other areas of knowledge, and also in geographical exploration and empire building.
  • (19) The deputy prime minister will issue a "call to arms for visionaries" to set out radical plans for new housing schemes as he announces the publication of a prospectus inviting bids from councils.
  • (20) He’s a very intelligent guy, he is a visionary and he has an approach to football that I think is remarkable … I’ve been saying to the president for a while: ‘Rémi is our Guardiola’,” said Bernard Lacombe, the long-time adviser to the Lyon president, Jean-Michel Aulas.