What's the difference between bland and overbearing?

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.

Overbearing


Definition:

  • (a.) Overpowering; subduing; repressing.
  • (a.) Aggressively haughty; arrogant; domineering; tyrannical; dictatorial; insolent.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Her childhood - split between a boisterous outdoorsiness and an intense inner life - was dominated by her overbearing mother, with whom she fought "steadily but reluctantly" until her death.
  • (2) "[In the] last farm bill debate in 2008, Rep Earl Blumenauer heroically tried to force a vote on food aid reform, but was quashed by an overbearing rules committee, which wouldn't permit him to offer the amendment.
  • (3) The ditziness, the choice between the good man and the bad boy (Darcy and Cleaver), the overbearing parents all seemed infantilising.
  • (4) But the British institutions can still provide obstacles to overbearing Prime Ministers.
  • (5) It's about a child star and his overbearing parents and his agent and the studio, lawyers, therapists, everything.
  • (6) "Transplanting the Pirates Of The Caribbean aesthetic to the Wild Wild West proves disastrous in The Lone Ranger, an indigestible swill of forced humour and oversized, overbearing action sequences," he writes.
  • (7) "The state remains as bloated, overbearing and inefficient as ever.
  • (8) The heroic supposition appears to be that an overbearing state is somehow suppressing entrepreneurial spirit in areas such as the north-east, and that private enterprise will naturally burst forth once the public sector is cut down to size.
  • (9) The atmosphere inside the grounds has been good, even if Fifa's corporatism can be overbearing.
  • (10) Scotland would be a counterweight to London's huge, overbearing influence over the British economy.
  • (11) He never got on with his overbearing mother, Rosalind, but idealised his father Edward, who, as captain of the former passenger steamer Rawalpindi, had gone down with his ship and 263 men after the attack by the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst in November 1939.
  • (12) The alternative is that they'll be exactly like their online personas – overbearing and needy and desperate to react to everything with a tedious one-liner.
  • (13) Overbearing, ostentatious, and incongruous, don't you think?"
  • (14) To the authorities in Zug and Zurich, Rich was a victim of an overbearing US prosecutorial system - a system that had overreached itself in trying to have him extradited from Switzerland.
  • (15) Lyrically it is a bit overbearing, and there’s no mention of food or vodka, which is a bit strange.
  • (16) He wants recognition and respect from the international community, just as he wanted it (and probably did not get it) from his overbearing father and dysfunctional mafia family.
  • (17) Part of Manning's motivation, the defence has argued, was that he believed the US government to be overbearingly secretive, but again the prosecutors contend that is irrelevant to the question of his guilt or innocence.
  • (18) I found Mr Mitchell’s tone overbearing, but he did not swear at us.
  • (19) McKillop tried to defend his own tenure on the board, insisting Goodwin had not been overbearing and that the ABN deal was agreed by the entire board.
  • (20) In Out Of Place (1999), the memoir of his childhood and youth, Said described his father, who called himself William to emphasise his adopted American identity, as overbearing and uncommunicative.