What's the difference between cheerful and merry?

Cheerful


Definition:

  • (a.) Having or showing good spirits or joy; cheering; cheery; contented; happy; joyful; lively; animated; willing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But when he speaks, the crowds who have come together to make a stand against government corruption and soaring fuel prices cheer wildly.
  • (2) The District became a byword for crime and drug abuse, while its “mayor for life” lived high on the hog and lurched cheerfully from one scandal to the next.
  • (3) At best I would like to think about this as Project Cheer; we’re going to be upbeat about this.
  • (4) Cheers, then, to an apparent alliance of the NME, a few people in London's trendy E1 district and some dumb young musicians, because "New Rave" is upon us, and there is apparently no stopping it.
  • (5) Male patients were more cheerful during encounters with younger assistant nurses while female patients were more cheerful when interacting with older assistant nurses.
  • (6) Stray bottles were thrown over the barriers towards officers to cheers and chants of: “Shame on you, we’re human too.” The Met deployed what it described as a “significant policing operation”, including drafting in thousands of extra officers to tackle expected unrest, after previous events ended in arrests and clashes with police across the centre of the capital.
  • (7) Olympic games are a competition between countries, but here spectators can freely choose which star to cheer for and unite as one,” said Inoki, a lawmaker in Japan’s upper house who was known as “Burning Fighting Spirit” in the ring.
  • (8) There was indeed a crowd of “Women for Trump” cheering at the event.
  • (9) He'll watch Game of Thrones , from now on, as a cheerfully clueless fan, "with total surprise and joy", and meanwhile get on with other work.
  • (10) I think it will be done right.” Jeter was cheered when he took batting practice and when he ran into his dugout when it was over.
  • (11) But Blair's address - "history will forgive us" - was a dubious exercise in group therapy: the cheers smacked of pathetic gratitude, as he piously pardoned the legislators, as well as himself, for the catastrophe of Iraq.
  • (12) The audience, energised by an early heckler who was swiftly ejected from the hall at Jerusalem's International Convention Centre, received Obama's message with cheers, applause, whistles and several standing ovations.
  • (13) From one of his hospital visits Marr recalls a woman, eight months pregnant, who had suffered a stroke: "There are people far worse off than me who are so incredibly brave and cheerful.
  • (14) Trying to discourage me from my passion is inhuman – it’s not possible!” The crowd cheered and applauded.
  • (15) Cheers erupted at a camp for 100,000 displaced Christian civilians at the French-controlled airport .
  • (16) The jeers were meaningful and the cheers, well, they just were a sign of entertainment.
  • (17) "I had spent my teen years listening to Germaine Greer and Susie Orbach talking about female intellect," she says, and cheers all round.
  • (18) Updated at 4.23pm BST 3.19pm BST 54 mins "Afternoon Ian," cheers Simon McMahon.
  • (19) In Barcelona, Catalonian flags hang down from every other terraced window; a few months ago, its Nou Camp stadium was filled to 90,000-capacity, with patriots cheering on artists performing in Catalan.
  • (20) Officers in riot gear at a number of points later drew batons and clashed with members of the crowd, hours after the protest began gathering in central London at around 6pm before massing near parliament, where fireworks were let off to cheers.

Merry


Definition:

  • (superl.) Laughingly gay; overflowing with good humor and good spirits; jovial; inclined to laughter or play ; sportive.
  • (superl.) Cheerful; joyous; not sad; happy.
  • (superl.) Causing laughter, mirth, gladness, or delight; as, / merry jest.
  • (n.) A kind of wild red cherry.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I did a quick survey of friends' and neighbours' families and found 11 young people and three men in their 40s and 50s on this merry-go-round.
  • (2) The grotesque merry-go-round of more people selling fewer overpriced homes is in full swing.
  • (3) On hearing the Rolf Harris verdicts, I felt vengeful, like many, I expect – condemning this man who led the public a merry dance and enjoyed enormous success while perpetrating abuse.
  • (4) Steph Merry, head of marine renewables at the Renewable Energy Association, said last year that only the giant barrage made sense.
  • (5) Interesting that there should be so many applications who are, according to the Merry Hill store, of an “incredibly high” standard, and so soon after graduation.
  • (6) Dinner guests were serenaded by opera singer Renee Fleming, a triple-Grammy award-winning soprano, who sang Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and the Puccini aria O Mio Babbino Caro.
  • (7) Banks stopped lending almost overnight, and the Wilsons' property merry-go-round suddently started looking increasingly shaky.
  • (8) Merry Go 'Round was praised by Katy Perry and a song that Musgraves co-wrote, Undermine , was played on the TV series Nashville , shown in the UK on Channel 4.
  • (9) With the private sector now calling the tune on affordable housing, while hiding the score in a locked room, it’s not hard to see why the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, David Orr, recently told his members that developers are “leading local authorities on a merry dance”.
  • (10) Amid all the schadenfreude, it’s worth remembering that two years ago, Arsène Wenger and his merry men were similarly derided after suffering a comical opening day home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa, before going on to win eight and draw one of their next nine league matches.
  • (11) Allowing for the odd lapse – such as his terrible musical version of The Merry Wives of Windsor in 2006 – he has done much fine work.
  • (12) Interviewed about the cuts and the economic outlook on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday , Osborne looked grim and statesmanlike in repose – he has grown fleshier in office – but every time he began to speak his dimpled mouth formed a half-smile and his quick eyes were almost merry.
  • (13) A two-part German-South African co-production based on the bestselling Kate Mosse novel, it's a window-rattling potboiler bubbling with ancient religious conspiracies, comely medieval wenches, comely 21st-century academics, fogbanks of swirly past-times skulduggery, evil pharmaceutical CEOs in 10 denier tights, priapic chevaliers and, verily, a script that does dance a merry jig upon the very phizog of credibility.
  • (14) We decided we wanted to offer it to a young asylum seeker.” At the Paris parish of Saint Merry to which and her husband, Philippe, belong, Pépin had heard of the Welcome to France project run by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).
  • (15) "And going on that IVF merry-go-round with all the drugs and the stress, given the limited return ..." We also need to confront our illusions about having a genetic child if we are going to put so much faith in medical solutions, he adds.
  • (16) The last time he quit, two years ago as general election coordinator, he told Miliband: “After nearly 30 years of this, I feel like I’ve seen the merry-go-round turn too many times.” Unite had hijacked the selection process for the candidate for West Falkirk in favour of Watson’s office manager, Karie Murphy.
  • (17) At 14 she was high jumping 1.80m, she'd broken Katharine Merry's schools record, there was no hiding after that.
  • (18) Outside, a more than faintly surreal urban beach scene in a June downpour: battered garden chairs and tables, dripping merry-go-round horse, Cinderella's pumpkin.
  • (19) Given the attackers have only released a slice of the 100 terabytes of information they claim to have, Sony and its workers are set for a not-so-merry Christmas.
  • (20) Smoke, drink and make merry On the other hand, the British war veteran Henry Allingham had wildly differing advice (though he agrees on the smoking, at least), putting his longevity down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women. "