What's the difference between blemish and tarnish?

Blemish


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To mark with deformity; to injure or impair, as anything which is well formed, or excellent; to mar, or make defective, either the body or mind.
  • (v. t.) To tarnish, as reputation or character; to defame.
  • (n.) Any mark of deformity or injury, whether physical or moral; anything that diminishes beauty, or renders imperfect that which is otherwise well formed; that which impairs reputation.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Most hemangiomas are small, harmless birthmarks that appear soon after birth, proliferate for 8 to 18 months, and then slowly regress over the next 5 to 8 years, leaving normal or slightly blemished skin.
  • (2) At the same time, it can also be used to eliminate dark circles around the eyes, blend in skin grafts, and mask unsightly blemishes.
  • (3) Gerrard got on from the bench, but is not deemed ready for an international comeback and Jagielka blemished an otherwise solid shift by conceding the penalty.
  • (4) Although Speed had presided over five victories and five defeats in his 10 matches in charge of the principality, there were plenty of encouraging signs in Speed's stewardship, not least that four of the wins came in the past five games, with an unlucky 1-0 defeat by England at Wembley the only blemish.
  • (5) Frost, wind, rain and drought can discolour and blemish produce but there is no loss of nutrients.
  • (6) The run of unpredictable weather this season has left farmers and growers with bumper crops of "ugly" fruit and vegetables with reported increases in blemishes and scarring, as well as shortages due to later crops.
  • (7) By applying the cryoprobe to the lid margin and conjunctival surface instead of to the skin it was possible to limit the degree of depigmentation in these highly pigmented lids, and only one patient showed a mild cosmetic blemish.
  • (8) Unsightly - and sometimes alarming - as these blemishes are, they must not distract from the reality that the House will do something historic if it listens to the advice of Barack Obama and passes legislation that remains more ambitious than anything he promised on the campaign trail.
  • (9) When I ask both brothers about the incontrovertible blemishes on the last government's record, the policy of locking up children at Yarl's Wood, say, or the cavernous gap between executive reward and the minimum wage, they offer vague mea culpas.
  • (10) In recent years, various immigration reform measures have sought to screen out “undesirables” with blemished records , ignoring the fact that immigrants are often disproportionately targeted by racial profiling , unable to afford decent legal counsel and, in some cases, denied due process in a criminal justice system that heightens penalties for non-citizens .
  • (11) Slovakia were already in the lead when Fabio Cannavaro, the Italy captain who went through the entire 2006 World Cup without a single disciplinary blemish, blatantly blocked Juraj Kucka with his shoulder and smiled as he picked up the caution.
  • (12) Golovkin, without so much as a blemish on his cherubic visage, continued to mete out punishment.
  • (13) The driest March in 59 years , followed by the wettest June and autumn storms and flooding have reduced British fruit and vegetable harvests by more than 25% and left supermarkets unable to source their regular shaped, blemish-free produce.
  • (14) It served as a microcosm of a grey Wearside day about to be blemished by Brown's dismissal.
  • (15) Eleven months after being sacked by Newcastle - the sole blemish on his managerial CV - Allardyce, who has signed a three-year deal, is back in management, although not perhaps at the club he was expected to join.
  • (16) "The unpredictable weather this season, has left growers with bumper crops of ugly-looking fruit and vegetables with reported increases in blemishes and scarring, as well as shortages due to later crops.
  • (17) As with all Hawthorne's fantastic stories, and especially those written for Mosses , like "The Bosom Serpent" or "The Birth-Mark" (in which a husband becomes so obsessed with his otherwise ravishing wife's single blemish that he resolves to remove it at whatever cost), there is more going on here than an exercise in the ornamental grotesque.
  • (18) A major advantage of this method lies in the fact that it causes the patient no discomfort and leaves his skin without blemish.
  • (19) Although cosmetic procedures to remove blemishes were unnecessary, it was "odd" that hip and knee replacements had been placed in the same category.
  • (20) The only blemish to Messi’s superb showing was a missed penalty in the first half.

Tarnish


Definition:

  • (a.) To soil, or change the appearance of, especially by an alternation induced by the air, or by dust, or the like; to diminish, dull, or destroy the luster of; to sully; as, to tarnish a metal; to tarnish gilding; to tarnish the purity of color.
  • (v. i.) To lose luster; to become dull; as, gilding will tarnish in a foul air.
  • (n.) The quality or state of being tarnished; stain; soil; blemish.
  • (n.) A thin film on the surface of a metal, usually due to a slight alteration of the original color; as, the steel tarnish in columbite.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) 'Devastated' Peter Greste calls on Egypt's president to pardon trio Read more “It’s ironic that the conviction was for tarnishing Egypt’s reputation when ... this [case] is what’s tarnished Egypt’s image,” Clooney told BBC News.
  • (2) He used the pre-recorded speech to deny accusations of embezzlement, saying: "They aim to tarnish my reputation and discredit my integrity, my stance, my political and military history during which I worked hard for Egypt and its people in peace and war."
  • (3) After heat treatment, the test piece was examined for compressive strength, compressive shrinkage, hardness, tarnishing and difference in phase.
  • (4) It is little wonder therefore that the circumstances around its death immediately prompted Westminster speculation that the announcement had simply been rushed forward from after the Easter recess in order to put some political punch back into the prime minister's tarnished anti-Ukip immigration initiative.
  • (5) Like many in Abbottabad, Abbasi believes the town has been unfairly tarnished by its association with a terrorist mastermind who lived undetected just a short distance from Pakistan's elite military training school.
  • (6) Paris police launch inquiry after Chelsea fans seen abusing black man on film Read more Handing down the orders at Stratford magistrates court on Wednesday, he said it was a racist incident that tarnished English football.
  • (7) And each of these groups is giving Clinton, or whoever emerges as the Democratic candidate for the 2016 White House race, at least a two-to-one advantage over a Republican party whose brand has been badly tarnished.
  • (8) The heavy price of Goldsmith’s shameless attempts to tarnish a liberal Muslim is that it will become harder, not easier, for Asians to call out unacceptable practices in their own communities.
  • (9) For the 32-month period these prostheses have been in use, no tissue reaction, tarnish, or corrosion had been observed.
  • (10) A conservative, lower-middle-class district bordering the Golden Horn and predominantly inhabited by Turks from the Black Sea coast, Kasimpasa loves Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the powerful prime minister increasingly reviled across Turkey and tarnished internationally.
  • (11) Anglo-Russian relations remain tarnished by the murder of British citizen and Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 with a radioactive isotope.
  • (12) A tarnished airline brand coupled with weak finances can spell doom.
  • (13) That did not work out, but such mis-steps don’t seem to have tarnished the rapper’s brand.
  • (14) Meanwhile, the symbols of their adopted country’s world-beating prowess, from football to cars, look somewhat tarnished.
  • (15) He said it was a racist incident that tarnished English football.
  • (16) The true value of these celebrity paintings: like Picasso's Child with a Dove , which left Britain when the Qatar royal family bought it for £50m, is tarnished by massive sums.
  • (17) The alloys which had a high atomic ratio of Au + Pt + Pd + In + Zn to Ag had higher tarnish resistance.
  • (18) The legacy of this side cannot be tarnished, but for the first real time under Guardiola, they are under threat.
  • (19) Polls over the last year showed Chicagoans growing dissatisfied with Emanuel, with the star power that helped him return to Chicago and become mayor clearly tarnished.
  • (20) Is there any chance the Israelis will let us through, and repair their tarnished reputation?