What's the difference between brusque and dour?

Brusque


Definition:

  • (a.) Rough and prompt in manner; blunt; abrupt; bluff; as, a brusque man; a brusque style.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Overlaying the image are a few brusque swipes across the canvas, a gauzy smear of thin white paint, as if something had passed between us and the painting.
  • (2) The cases of 2 women with histologically proven GCA-TA are presented in which, together with the most classical symptoms, they presented a brusque mental deterioration on initiation of the disease.
  • (3) I suppose occasionally she may have spoken brusquely to one or two people who wanted more respect, but the job of the prime minister’s chief of staff is to be strong, it’s to be tough, it’s to be focused and she did an absolutely marvellous job.” Abbott said he did not want to criticise the new treasurer, Scott Morrison, whom he accused last week of “badly misleading people” by claiming he had warned Abbott’s office on the Friday before the leadership challenge to be on high alert.
  • (4) The second set of cops, they claim, were ruder and more brusque.
  • (5) He has also acquired a reputation for brusqueness with journalists ( he walked out of an interview with the Guardian in Iowa ) and, unusually for an American politician, he hardly ever smiles.
  • (6) Some critics labelled Sadik-Khan “brusque” and uncompromising; others wondered whether such labels tend to stick more easily to the relatively rare women in positions of power.
  • (7) It feels almost too obvious to point out that all of those complaints can be aimed right back at Sulzberger, specifically in relation to his generally astonishing, notably brusque and especially brutal firing of Abramson.
  • (8) Diuretics may be too brusque and lead to intracerebral haematoma.
  • (9) I’m scared of making generalisations, but there’s a brusque, down-to-earth humour where people tend to hit the nail on the head.
  • (10) The brusque, uncommunicative president she was hired to assist ("swathed in a whiskey mink, her eyes covered with enormous dark glasses, her head with a silk scarf in an equestrian pattern") was Phyllis Westberg.
  • (11) These interactions were: cool, efficient and rushed on one unit; casual, warm and somewhat superficial on the second unit; brusque and business-like on the third unit.
  • (12) 5 sparing diet a reduced serum cholesterol concentration was noted along with a noticeable rise of the cholic acid content in the bile with a not too brusque rise of the cholesterol level therein, which led to an increase of the cholate-cholesterol coefficient.
  • (13) She, like Abramson, was criticised for poor communication skills ("very difficult to talk to") , her bossiness ( "authoritarian" ) and her brusque nature ( "Putin-like" ).
  • (14) Her brusque humour frequently targeted celebrities, as well as herself.
  • (15) Then he railed at the club for not killing the stories regarding Pellegrini, an illustration of the Italian's brusque style, one which has not endeared him to players or some members of staff.
  • (16) Failure of reform Compared with the expenses horrors of 2009, such brusque Commons business may not qualify as a grade A parliamentary scandal.
  • (17) If the train brakes brusquely or the lights go out, I go into survival mode.” After the attacks, Alex wrote two harrowing blogposts about his experience that were widely read.
  • (18) Abramson, it has been reported, was "brusque" , "pushy", "mercurial".
  • (19) In any case, his brusque “lack of affect” provides one of the long-standing puzzles of the film: is he, too, a replicant?
  • (20) But in the governor’s brusque, “get it done” approach to city planning, he has also overseen mass evictions from overcrowded waterside kampung .

Dour


Definition:

  • (a.) Hard; inflexible; obstinate; sour in aspect; hardy; bold.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Reports from the scenes of Muslim Brotherhood and Freedom and Justice Party rallies conveyed a dour mood in Cairo, while active clashes were reported in both coastal cities and upper Egypt.
  • (2) There’s hard work and dour activities and that’s what I’m going to be doing.” Corbyn and his deputy, Tom Watson , are expected to make regular – and more public – visits to Scotland to help Scottish Labour avoid a further rout at next May’s Holyrood elections; the latest opinion polls suggest the SNP is on course to win a second successive overall majority with its approval ratings at more than 50%.
  • (3) However, as we watch Blade Runner , Deckard doesn’t feel like a replicant; he is dour and unengaged, but lacks his victims’ detached innocence, their staccato puzzlement at their own untrained feelings.
  • (4) Reith, “his dour handsome face scarred like that of a villain in a melodrama”, was “a strange shepherd for such a mixed, bohemian flock … he had under his aegis a bevy of ex-soldiers, ex-actors, ex-adventurers which … even a Dartmoor prison governor might have had difficulty in controlling”.
  • (5) The dour Zenawi could not resist a swipe at western pundits who had once written off Africa.
  • (6) A spectacular fall from grace on the pitch – from first to seventh, playing dour football that is anathema to fans who feasted on success throughout the Ferguson era – will also lead to renewed scrutiny of the club's controversial US owners, the Glazer family , away from it.
  • (7) The seafront was grey and almost deserted; outside the dour concrete venue, there was a single delegate having a blustery cigarette.
  • (8) But it was in westerns that Peck's dour integrity showed itself best: unshaven and tough in Yellow Sky (1948); a dude learning to adapt to the west in The Big Country (1958); and obsessively after the men who raped and killed his wife in The Bravados (1958).
  • (9) On Tuesday, the bunkhouse breakfast room felt like a hunting lodge, with wives and girlfriends serving meals while working-class men with beards, flannel shirts and dour expressions milled about.
  • (10) Milosevic himself, until then a dour and orthodox communist, appeared to realise his gift for rhetoric and the power of nationalism.
  • (11) Saki (Hector Hugh Munro, 1870-1916) was raised by his strict, dour aunts and grandmother, and was gay but closeted all his life – for good reason, since homosexual acts between men were still illegal.
  • (12) Fun is fun, and please don't try and stop people having fun, things are dour enough as it is."
  • (13) Because there is no ‘message’ – there’s just Jeremy!” Membership Event: Guardian Live | The future of Labour: meet the next leader By the end of the night, even the dour stewards were applauding.
  • (14) This late action made the preceding dour fare seem all the more disappointing.
  • (15) We were told he would be the dour, humourless lefty; and again he has been a challenge to expectations.
  • (16) We talk some more about Mad Men , about: "The swirl and sound and fury of it… For a show that is as dour and moody and pendulous as ours, we have fun."
  • (17) George averaged only 14.5 points and six rebounds in the first two games of the series and started slowly against on Friday before gathering pace in the dour encounter.
  • (18) The two TV presenters broadcasting from the crowd – she in a gold-spangled minidress and rigid curls, him dour in black tie – shot baleful looks in his direction as he carried on honking.
  • (19) Murray is a bit dour true to his Scottish nature but he is an excellent player.
  • (20) Jeremy Corbyn conceded that it would not be easy to revive Labour’s position in Scotland but promised “hard work and dour activities” as he made his first visit to the nation since his election as party leader.