What's the difference between aloof and sullen?

Aloof


Definition:

  • (n.) Same as Alewife.
  • (adv.) At or from a distance, but within view, or at a small distance; apart; away.
  • (adv.) Without sympathy; unfavorably.
  • (prep.) Away from; clear from.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He strikes me more as a clever man - oh, very clever - than a necessarily charming man; for there's a distance, an aloofness.
  • (2) "He understands that the public see him as privileged, aloof, that they don't like him as a person," says Ganesh.
  • (3) The solution is for Hathaway to spend a year in sarky Manchester, where her attempts to go jogging will be thwarted by 324 days of rain, and if she so much as thinks about telling a Mancunian barmaid that she has poured those lagers fantastically well, she will swiftly learn an aloofness not taught in any American drama school.
  • (4) The psychopathological risk is the "burning out" of the subject, and the defences developed against it, such as humour (casualness), aloofness (abdication), deviance and drug-dependence.
  • (5) "I don't think he is aloof at all," says the Today editor.
  • (6) Britain had previously held aloof from the feuds of Europe's nation states.
  • (7) Does the colour of Campbell skin make us more likely to interpret her behaviour as intimidating, as difficult, rather than simply as aloof, or withdrawn?
  • (8) Fearing false accusation, adults still stay aloof even when a child might possibly be in danger.
  • (9) The mother is irascible, the father aloof; on the other hand, the parental combination "mother and father affectionate" is more common.
  • (10) They were aloof, blokey and arrogant," said one sports broadcasting veteran.
  • (11) I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional,” Clinton said.
  • (12) Our first response is often to bristle at any suggestion of censure, and in doing so we risk coming across as aloof, paternalistic and insensitive to the genuine concerns of others.
  • (13) Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, denied the charge that the programme makers are aloof and told the Observer that Danny Cohen, the head of BBC1, and other commissioning editors, including Younghusband, have repeatedly reviewed what went wrong and are changing procedures following the death of controversial figures.
  • (14) Since the extravert is the more sociable, excitement-seeking, carefree individual, while the introvert is more retiring, aloof and introspective, it would be worthwhile in future research to determine whether the dominance, vs. submissive or the high vs. low status dimension is the essential correlate of these spatial differences.
  • (15) Woman at centre of South Korean row says she 'deserves death' Read more Park has already been criticised for being aloof and relying on only a few longstanding confidantes.
  • (16) Ministers continue to grumble that the PM is too aloof, delegating messy domestic policy to the DPM.
  • (17) From the start, nobody has been less aloof, more assertive, nor more influential than the oil and gas industry.
  • (18) The main results of this study were the identification of: a) emotionally unstable patients (42%) who did not respond to the above mentioned selection criterion; b) stable psychological traits such as hostility, aloofness, extroversion as described in type A Behavior Pattern and c) the presence of secondary alexitimic responses suggesting a protective denial of the meaning of the disease.
  • (19) He is the hands-on chief executive to Cameron’s aloof chairman of the board and is therefore the natural focus of Labour’s opprobrium.
  • (20) She writes: If the Southern Rail fiasco has taught us anything it’s surely that travellers need to stand (conveniently) shoulder to shoulder against operating companies, rather than maintain their usual mutual aloofness.

Sullen


Definition:

  • (a.) Lonely; solitary; desolate.
  • (a.) Gloomy; dismal; foreboding.
  • (a.) Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
  • (a.) Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.
  • (a.) Obstinate; intractable.
  • (a.) Heavy; dull; sluggish.
  • (n.) One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit.
  • (n.) Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens.
  • (v. t.) To make sullen or sluggish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Most defendants in multimillion-euro fraud cases turn up to court ashen-faced and sullen-looking.
  • (2) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (3) The result is a weird kind of dissonance: blogs and op-ed pieces written in London salivate over "the most important byelection in 30 years" and claim – with some justification – that its outcome will have profound consequences for the two coalition parties, while most locals view it all with a sullen detachment.
  • (4) They were instantly swamped by sunlight; more the sullen accused on trial than Her Majesty's front bench.
  • (5) "Even a total stranger could experience the chilling effect of seeing sullen pairs of the Guardia Civil walking the street."
  • (6) In his memoir , Brown’s former aide Damian McBride candidly describes the thrill of having the ear of one of the most powerful men in the land – though he confesses the prime minister would “stare at [him] sullenly for a moment or two, then say: ‘Get me Ed Balls.’” I certainly met plenty of chiefs of staff and spin doctors who jealously guarded their privileged access to a particular politician and their status as that MP’s “vicar on Earth”.
  • (7) Against a backdrop described by the King's Fund thinktank as "deepening pessimism about the ability of the NHS to make ends meet, particularly in 2015-16", many on the health side are sullenly resentful of "their" money going into the BCF.
  • (8) Factor analysis of this brief inventory resulted in eight factors: disorientation, impaired concentration and thinking, paranoid-hallucinatory symptoms, anxiety, sullen inadequacy (restraint depression), hostility, loss of control, giving up.
  • (9) Through a double-glazed window in an adjacent room, a sullen security guard in khaki watches over all.
  • (10) Shortly after midnight Friday, partygoers belted Purple Rain together, a notably moving moment amid a sullen day.
  • (11) That sullen death-stare she perfected as April in Parks & Rec should come in handy somewhere on the dark side, perhaps as a female Sith Lord – a Sith Lady, if you will.
  • (12) If you’re sensing that the Mill is bored, or better yet, indifferent, or better yet, showing all the sullen ardour of a husband obliging himself to make love to his wife in the thick of a carnal indifference, then take your right hand, place it over your left shoulder and give yourself a big old pat on the back.
  • (13) I interviewed G-Unit once (minus the banged-up Tony Yayo) and they were the antithesis of the sullen, aggressive rapper stereotype (although they did turn their noses up at the very idea of letting any of the "British food" at their 5-star hotel pass their lips, and sent their manager out for a McDonalds instead).
  • (14) There are roadblocks manned by sullen-looking teenagers cradling AK-47s, but no meaningful law and order.
  • (15) Behind came a straggling caravan of mules and porters, including a couple of teenage boys who watched the college girls with sullen fascination.
  • (16) McFadden's penalty brought City a point, at which point William Gallas went all precious, attacking an advertising board and sitting sullenly on the pitch after the final whistle.
  • (17) A period as manager of Port Vale, after Stoke had rather sullenly parted company with him, reducing his wages and refusing him complimentary tickets, was ill-starred.
  • (18) It made him look sullen, grumpy and at worst disengaged from his challenger.
  • (19) Obscenity is lecherous and sullen in regard to women and virulent towards men: it may then be interpreted as a mean of struggle against the anxiety of death.
  • (20) Manchester United survived a couple of scares in 2008 at Wigan, but ultimately won 2-0 comfortably, while in 2010 Chelsea romped to an 8-0 victory over Wigan at Stamford Bridge as United sullenly and pointlessly beat Stoke City 4-0 at home.