What's the difference between blunt and gruff?

Blunt


Definition:

  • (a.) Having a thick edge or point, as an instrument; dull; not sharp.
  • (a.) Dull in understanding; slow of discernment; stupid; -- opposed to acute.
  • (a.) Abrupt in address; plain; unceremonious; wanting the forms of civility; rough in manners or speech.
  • (a.) Hard to impress or penetrate.
  • (v. t.) To dull the edge or point of, by making it thicker; to make blunt.
  • (v. t.) To repress or weaken, as any appetite, desire, or power of the mind; to impair the force, keenness, or susceptibility, of; as, to blunt the feelings.
  • (n.) A fencer's foil.
  • (n.) A short needle with a strong point. See Needle.
  • (n.) Money.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Hepatic enzyme elevations were more dramatic after blunt trauma, reflecting greater hepatocellular disruption.
  • (2) The Metoclopramide-induced secretion of prolactin and aldosterone was blunted in 6 patients pretreated with 200 mg ibopamine.
  • (3) The computer tomographic appearances of lesions of parenchymatous organs following blunt abdominal trauma are described in 13 patients (five liver, four renal, two splenic and two pancreatic injuries).
  • (4) Last November he bluntly warned EU chiefs he could, if he wished, “flood Europe” with refugees.
  • (5) Persons with clinical abdominal findings, shock, altered sensorium, and severe chest injuries after blunt trauma should undergo the procedure.
  • (6) Blunt trauma to the epigastrum may result in a retroperitoneal hematoma involving the head of the pancreas and descending duodenum.
  • (7) The changes included swelling, blunting, and flattening of epithelial foot processes, were accompanied by decreased stainability of glomerular anionic sites, and were largely reversed by subsequent perfusion with the polyanion heparin.
  • (8) Addition of Ni2+ prior to TRH blunted the component of the TRH-induced transient increase in [Ca2+]i dependent on influx of Ca2+.
  • (9) As previously reported, patients with affective disorders show a blunted GH response to clonidine.
  • (10) Blunt homicide predominated amongst White females, who were substantially older than the Coloured and African subjects.
  • (11) A comparison of two different restriction enzymes, which cleave the plasmid with blunt or cohesive-ended double-strand breaks, did not reveal differences in repair fidelity.
  • (12) The prognosis was better following blunt trauma, stretch injuries and after a spontaneous onset.
  • (13) Seventeen (77%) of the injuries were due to penetrating trauma and five (23%) were due to blunt trauma.
  • (14) The cortisol response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia and exogenous ACTH appeared to be blunted in these patients.
  • (15) Vagal blockade reversibly inhibited the rise of plasma PP and significantly blunted the elevation of plasma VIP.
  • (16) But the drugs chief, Julio Calzada, is blunt: " For 50 years, we have tried to tackle the drug problem with only one tool – penalisation – and that has failed .
  • (17) Average increases in resting metabolic expenditure for a group of patients following elective operation, skeletal trauma, skeletal trauma with head injury, blunt trauma, sepsis and burns were determined by indirect calorimetry and protein need by urinary nitrogen losses over extended time periods.
  • (18) The indication for angiography in children accident patients with blunt trauma must be set up carefully.
  • (19) Arterial occlusion or stenosis due to blunt trauma is rare.
  • (20) Also, the initial rise in V1 was blunted or blocked in all subjects.

Gruff


Definition:

  • (superl.) Of a rough or stern manner, voice, or countenance; sour; surly; severe; harsh.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A gruff intellectual alternately nicknamed “Mad Dog” and “the warrior monk,” Mattis is deeply respected in much of the foreign policy establishment, despite notably clashing with the Obama administration over his more hawkish views on Iran.
  • (2) Ricky Gervais: 'It’s always about people, it’s always about ego' Read more Take the film’s opening minute, in which gruff US comedian Jim Norton cameos as an absurdly camp male prostitute eager to offer radio journalist Frank Bonneville (Eric Bana) a “freebie”.
  • (3) I still am.” For many Republican primary voters, the question is whether the unassuming if somewhat gruff Paul – who insisted on no mayo in the ham and cheese sandwich he ordered for lunch – ever was particularly interesting, or if voters were only attracted to the idiosyncratic, 21st-century libertarianism he expounds.
  • (4) At the booth in between the never-was of Windsor and the has-been of Detroit, the officer I happened to draw had a gruff belly and the mysterious air of intentional inscrutability, like a troll under a bridge in a fairytale.
  • (5) The then manager was Walter Smith, a gruff but dignified Scot who had enjoyed considerable success at Rangers a decade earlier.
  • (6) Ingham, whose gruffness camouflages an intellect of silken agility, was addressing the specific question of his boss’s public image, and asking, by implication, if the Iron Lady could – well – melt, just a little.
  • (7) The film critic, who says Statham's name with an approximation of his low, gruff cockney, likes the chance the actor took with Hummingbird and also admires his 2011 film Blitz , co-starring Paddy Considine.
  • (8) Many had come for the first time to witness the much-vaunted oratorical skills of France’s youngest MP – and to see how she compared to her grandfather, the gruff former paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the Front National in 1972 and led it to become the most successful far-right party in western Europe.
  • (9) Get the metal pan!” Martin jokes, aping the Hollywood convention of a gruff doctor dropping each slug into a brass surgical tray with a solid “plink”.
  • (10) Rajapaksa's folksy, gruff bonhomie and his canny direction of development funds to the countryside has paid dividends at successive polls.
  • (11) His manner was often gruff and rude, even to those he liked: Isabella Blow, (pictured right with McQueen) who was broke when she bought his entire first collection and had to pay for it in installments, told me once how he used to march her to the cashpoint every week to get £50 out.
  • (12) Many of them were adapted for television or made into feature films; the Wexford books in particular were an enormous success on TV, with the actor George Baker playing Wexford as a big, gruff, rural policeman, solving crime in the fictional Sussex town of Kingsmarkham.
  • (13) But his less enthusiastic answer about Bannon comes amid reports of infighting in the Trump White House, all of which place the gruff, irascible Bannon at the center.
  • (14) Jenkins is small, but she has a surprisingly gruff voice, rising to a growl when she is annoyed.
  • (15) "I'm extremely well," he says with jovial gruffness.
  • (16) Luther starts in the UK on Tuesday, 9pm, BBC1 LUTHER: THE SERIES THREE LINEUP John Luther Gruff of voice, red of eye, natty of coat, the maverick DCI is good at solving crime, bad at life.
  • (17) His voice sounded gruff, his eyes still fixed on my breasts as he continued the fierce stroking and caressing.
  • (18) The White House did not announce the meeting until late on Thursday, prompting a gruff complaint from Beijing, in what has become something of a diplomatic ritual whenever Obama meets the exiled Buddhist monk.
  • (19) Tens of thousands of west of Scotland men derived a gruff pride in working hard for their money and providing food and shelter for their families.
  • (20) The show has made a star of one year 9 boy, 13-year-old Ryan Ward, a gruff-voiced, latte-drinking philosopher who wants to be a firefighter, a police officer or an actor.