What's the difference between blithe and nonchalant?

Blithe


Definition:

  • (a.) Gay; merry; sprightly; joyous; glad; cheerful; as, a blithe spirit.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On Wednesday, the ire of the marchers was focused on all those Lib Dems who blithely signed the NUS's anti-fees pledge ("I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative" – yesterday, Nick Clegg limply said that he "should have been more careful" than to put his name to it).
  • (2) Instead, the spending review blithely asserted "couples with children must work 24 hours per week between them" in order to get a credit that is worth up to an annual maximum of £3,870.
  • (3) Last month, for example, the Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne bemoaned their "devastating" fate, in a piece worth quoting at reasonable length, if only to prove that the idea of an out-of-touch elite blithely wreaking havoc is not the preserve of hard-bitten lefties.
  • (4) This is why, you see, people with rucksacks pummel all those in their immediate vicinity with their giant sacks as they trundle on their way, whacking them about as they blithely move about trains, pavements or any other public area.
  • (5) These films were a blithe rebuttal of the critic Edward Said’s insight that, in a novel like Mansfield Park, the “English” story necessarily concealed the story, located elsewhere but inextricable from the main narrative, of a West Indian sugar plantation.
  • (6) Click here for the Magic in the Moonlight trailer Compared with the gloomy ruminations on ageing and aspiration that characterised the well-received Blue Jasmine, which won Cate Blanchett an Oscar , this is Allen going back to the knockabout farce and blithe May-December couplings that populate his lighter films.
  • (7) This narrative is a form of manufacture of innocence to mask a great crime: what your script blithely calls "the detainee program".
  • (8) Here lies our greatest risk, one insufficiently appreciated by those who so blithely accept the tentacles of corporation, press and state insinuating their way into the private sphere.
  • (9) When he arrived at the venue and was confronted by a motley horde of fans, tipped off by a tweet, instead of sidling in the back to pace about alone in a corridor, like a normal human would, Fry blithely faced the crowd, chatting and signing autographs.
  • (10) She says she "naively stumbled into the campaign", starting the petition on Change.org, which she found through a Google search, and setting her target at a blithely optimistic 1m signatures.
  • (11) I have a concern that there are too many of them – and most will gather dust on shelves, and hospitals will go blithely on as they always have.
  • (12) But they blithely ignore the fact that wealth isn't being created under the existing broken economic model.
  • (13) Mr Osborne can hardly not know this, but he continues blithely to define living within our means as a government challenge, rather than a wider challenge to the entire public and private sector.
  • (14) Yes, when we all had the blithe assumption that houses would always rise in value, that bankers were always going to get £3m bonuses.
  • (15) In a fascinating recent article the economist Tyler Cowen pointed out the problem with blithe assumptions about a better future – they miss out on the history of what actually happened in the great industrial transformations of the past.
  • (16) Phone jammed to her ear, laptop open on her knee, she was blithely conducting a conference call while wearing highlighter foils.
  • (17) The original sin of the euro-enthusiasts was to settle the politics first and then blithely assume that the economics would sort themselves out.
  • (18) This distinction, popularised by Michael Ignatieff in the mid-1990s, has received much debate, which Bragg blithely ignores.
  • (19) It’s just interesting that home advantage – the chance to build a rapport with local audiences; familiarity with local culture, etc – is being blithely squandered.
  • (20) But clearly there is a difference between blithely hurtling into catastrophe and trying to lead a party away from it.

Nonchalant


Definition:

  • (a.) Indifferent; careless; cool.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) All of this in the same tones of weary nonchalance you might use to stop the dog nosing around in the bin.
  • (2) There was nothing accidental about Saffiyah Khan’s easy nonchalance, grinning through the spitting rage of Ian Crossland at the EDL rally in Birmingham city centre at the weekend; Ieshia Evans knew there was more power in calm when she approached the police in Baton Rouge last summer.
  • (3) So it is only a fool, like me, who would walk nonchalantly around the headland during a high wind.
  • (4) In interviews during the Star Wars years, Fisher affected nonchalance about that break-up.
  • (5) Part of their appeal was their apparent nonchalance, which tended to be mistaken for cool but was really, she says, just gauche bemusement.
  • (6) Early in the second half, Rivera, with a splendid burst of individualism, flicked the ball over his head to beat one man, accelerated past two more, and sent a superb shot which the little goalkeeper almost nonchalantly fisted over the top.
  • (7) The concert has been long prepared, Josh and his friend Ahmed from the perilous estates nearby laying tracks to "Jessie Wright" and another song for Agnes – "a tribute to a girl got shot in Hoxton", Josh says, with apparent nonchalance, but a stab of sorrowful anger in his eye.
  • (8) And the streets of Athens looked like Glastonbury – minus the mud; plus the teargas … Standing in London's Greek heartland, I feel a curious detachment, a curious out-of-body nonchalance that people also describe when they're remembering a car crash.
  • (9) When I ask if his public attacks on Blatter and Fifa might have been rashly intemperate, his tone is nonchalantly defiant.
  • (10) She was characterised by her very specific sense of failure, which was rueful but nonchalant at the same time: Pearson's iconic image had Kate Reddy smashing up shop-bought mince pies to make them look as though she'd made them herself.
  • (11) As Glastonbury virgins, they treated the world's biggest festival with the same nonchalant naivety with which they'd conducted their entire career, and with the added issues of an enormous crowd and 2007's ultra-sensitive perimeter sound limiters, it made for a distant and underwhelming experience.
  • (12) It hardly needs saying how rare this is in an industry where interviewees, generally, come wobbling  at you like carnival floats, the girls with a small army of wardrobe support staff and the boys trembling from the effort of looking nonchalant in their duds.
  • (13) She stayed with my eldest daughter until I had moved house, and is now back here doing her thing, all emerald eyes and feline nonchalance.
  • (14) Creditably, McLeod retained sufficient poise to nonchalantly extend his right foot and dink the ball over the advancing Mannone.
  • (15) Given how perfect Ford’s nonchalant swagger works for the character, it seems criminal that there was ever any other option.
  • (16) I climbed too fast for vertigo to strike, scissored my legs over the railings, dropped on to concrete, rolled, picked myself up, then endeavoured to walk across the neatly trimmed lawn with a nonchalant air.
  • (17) This bullish assurance is bookended by Okoye's studied nonchalance.
  • (18) For extra kudos, hold court with the argument that the avant-bland looks on the catwalk are the natural extension of how Phoebe Philo, current queen of catwalk cool, has made the tradition of giving artistic and retro references to a collection look old hat by her habit of shrugging nonchalantly and insisting the clothes she designs are just, y'know, stuff she wants to wear.
  • (19) Of course it’s nice to be up 1-0 and not 0-1, but we didn’t play that well and we’re going to have to do it much, much better on Sunday … they are more athletic than us and stronger than us.” Recovered from an ankle injury, Spurs guard Tony Parker contributed 19 points and reacted to questions about the heat with nonchalance.
  • (20) Yet no matter how many people are bellowing at him, Lansley perpetually wears the nonchalant expression of a man killing time by humming cheerfully in a lift.