What's the difference between bland and drab?

Bland


Definition:

  • (a.) Mild; soft; gentle; smooth and soothing in manner; suave; as, a bland temper; bland persuasion; a bland sycophant.
  • (a.) Having soft and soothing qualities; not drastic or irritating; not stimulating; as, a bland oil; a bland diet.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For further education, this would be my priority: a substantial increase in funding and an end to tinkering with the form of qualifications and bland repetition of the “parity of esteem” trope.
  • (2) Reoperation was more frequent after valve replacement with bioprostheses (6.7% per patient year) than after valvuloplasty (4.3% per patient year) and after mechanical valve replacement (1.5% per patient year; P less than 0.02), and was necessitated mainly by residual or recurrent valve dysfunction after valvuloplasty, bland or infected periprosthetic leaks in mechanical valves and degradation of bioprostheses.
  • (3) "Everyone calls him the Socialist Worker Padre," one bland senior cleric told me with a sly and dismissive laugh.
  • (4) ABNORMALITIES OF THE CERVICAL EPITHELIUM ARE SET OUT IN TWO MAIN GROUPS: bland lesions which are regarded as unrelated to malignancy, and malign lesions which are considered as potential precursors of invasive carcinoma.
  • (5) Embolization with avitene, PVA and ethanol induced a more bland histological reaction than the one observed with IBCA.
  • (6) Sir Christopher Bland, the former BBC chairman, told the BBC News channel the allegations were "very serious" but warned against jumping to conclusions about Rippon stepping aside.
  • (7) Among pro-independence people there are widespread concerns that if the SNP moves too quickly on a referendum it will cast the choice in the often bland New Labour-ish terms it uses for everyday politics – and thus deprive Scotland of a crucial opportunity to discuss its future, as well as threatening their chances of winning.
  • (8) But blandness in public should not be mistaken for blandness of character, and there are signs that she is beginning to emerge from the passive role she has been playing.
  • (9) Most examples measure less than or equal to 0.5 cm and are composed of a partially encapsulated mass of bland Schwann cells and innumerable tiny axons arranged in interlacing fascicles.
  • (10) His neutralisation strategy has amounted to little more than bland statements of support and efforts to keep the NHS out of the news.
  • (11) He is a regular panellist on comedy news quizzes, and reaches for Wodehouse in depicting 70s foreign secretary Lord Home "playing Lord Emsworth to Heath's Empress of Blandings".
  • (12) Pathologic examination of the orbital breast metastases revealed two types: an adenocarcinomatous pattern with nests of pleomorphic malignant appearing cells and a histiocytoid variant with bland, large cells similar to histiocytes.
  • (13) Unfortunately, the commercials are so bland and empty that they’re almost certainly doomed to failure.
  • (14) Much of the time he sounds bland, monotonal, bobbing gently along.
  • (15) The frequency of major events during follow-up (thromboembolism, anticoagulant related hemorrhage, bland perivalvular leak and prosthetic valve endocarditis) were similar, but the frequency of primary tissue valve failure was markedly different for the two valves (1.1% per patient-year for Ionescu-Shiley valves and 5.9% for the Hancock valve).
  • (16) A bland vasculopathic process resulting from metabolic or immunologic disturbances appears to be the best explanation for this new syndrome, which has previously been recognized only in Japan.
  • (17) The anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (Bland-White-Garland Syndrome) is a rare congenital malformation reported to occur in 0.25-0.5% of all congenital cardiac anomalies.
  • (18) He recommends not a bland and stimulus-free environment, but one whose elements are unobtrusive and unambiguous.
  • (19) David Bell will be online this afternoon at 4.15pm to answer your points at www.EducationGuardian.co.uk Changing faces of Ofsted Stewart Sutherland 1992-1994 Sutherland was criticised for a slow start and bland inspections.
  • (20) Two deceptively benign-appearing, unclassifiable but very similar fibromyxoid sarcomas characterized histologically by bland, innocuous-appearing fibroblastic cells and a swirling, whorled growth pattern are presented.

Drab


Definition:

  • (n.) A low, sluttish woman.
  • (n.) A lewd wench; a strumpet.
  • (n.) A wooden box, used in salt works for holding the salt when taken out of the boiling pans.
  • (v. i.) To associate with strumpets; to wench.
  • (n.) A kind of thick woolen cloth of a dun, or dull brownish yellow, or dull gray, color; -- called also drabcloth.
  • (n.) A dull brownish yellow or dull gray color.
  • (a.) Of a color between gray and brown.
  • (n.) A drab color.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Mendl's candy colours contrast sharply with the gothic garb of our hero's enemies and the greys of the prison uniforms – as well as scenes showing the hotel later, in the 1960s, its opulence lost beneath a drab communist refurb.
  • (2) And it will almost certainly continue arriving in dribs and drabs, based on the Sea Dragon's observations.
  • (3) While Klimt was creating modern art there, Hitler was going to the opera to hear Wagner (conducted by the modernist Gustav Mahler), and soon eking a living painting drab topographic scenes.
  • (4) The most visible sign of this is the arrival each day, when parliament is in session in its lavish, marble-decked halls in the new capital of Naypyidaw , of scores of officers, natty in their freshly pressed olive drab.
  • (5) Here was a woman, "dismal, drab, embarrassing," sodden with "self-pity," who in the Golden Notebook had single-handedly set back the women's movement "a good long way".
  • (6) Inside, photographs of these often drab exteriors are contrasted with the vibrantly colourful images of the interiors.
  • (7) It is incredible the bombers did not have tickets but, regardless, they would not have got through the body searches at the gates.” Pavlovic and his wife, Ljiljana, had been selling scarves outside the arena prior to kick-off but, despite having tickets for the match, ambled down towards McDonald’s where they had parked in Impasse de la Cokerie, a drab cul de sac between characterless office blocks, to meet his cousin and her husband.
  • (8) Second half: Barcelona's players have been ready to start the second half for several minutes, while Inter's are emerging from the tunnel in dribs and drabs.
  • (9) A fter five years in the job of chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw will deliver his final annual general report as head of Ofsted on Thursday morning – possibly to his own regret and almost certainly to the regret of education journalists, for whom life can sometimes be a little drab.
  • (10) Photograph: John Brunton Situated smack on the "strada del vino", it is easy to drive straight past this drab-looking tratttoria.
  • (11) The 6.6-kilobase DNA fragment expressed five polypeptides with molecular masses of 15.5, 5, 18, 90, and 32 kilodaltons encoded by the draA, draB, draC, draD, and draE genes, respectively.
  • (12) On Monday, Gao began the latest phase of her crusade, travelling to a drab five-storey courthouse in western Beijing with about a dozen other relatives to file a lawsuit against Malaysia Airlines before a legal deadline that coincides with the disaster’s two-year anniversary.
  • (13) On the surface, the subject could not have been more drab.
  • (14) Slovakia v Paraguay in Bloem: another drab spectacle with the Slovakians managing to run around aimlessly for 90 minutes.
  • (15) And that's absolutely the right, drab clothing to reach for as the post-Leveson debate enters a new round.
  • (16) Despite all the dribs and drabs of innovation in the ocean of old-media rules, we're beginning to see a kind of ideal on the horizon.
  • (17) Anything positive would stand out against what's been a pretty drab backdrop so far.
  • (18) Yet sometimes a little decay here and there, some graffiti, flyers posted on walls and lampposts, can add liveliness to what would otherwise be a drab urban experience.
  • (19) High up in the National Theatre, Patrick Marber is huddled in the corner of a small, drab room.
  • (20) An AQI reading of 300 blots out the sun, smothering the city in drab uniformity.