What's the difference between cheerful and sullen?

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.

Sullen


Definition:

  • (a.) Lonely; solitary; desolate.
  • (a.) Gloomy; dismal; foreboding.
  • (a.) Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
  • (a.) Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.
  • (a.) Obstinate; intractable.
  • (a.) Heavy; dull; sluggish.
  • (n.) One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit.
  • (n.) Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens.
  • (v. t.) To make sullen or sluggish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Most defendants in multimillion-euro fraud cases turn up to court ashen-faced and sullen-looking.
  • (2) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (3) The result is a weird kind of dissonance: blogs and op-ed pieces written in London salivate over "the most important byelection in 30 years" and claim – with some justification – that its outcome will have profound consequences for the two coalition parties, while most locals view it all with a sullen detachment.
  • (4) They were instantly swamped by sunlight; more the sullen accused on trial than Her Majesty's front bench.
  • (5) "Even a total stranger could experience the chilling effect of seeing sullen pairs of the Guardia Civil walking the street."
  • (6) In his memoir , Brown’s former aide Damian McBride candidly describes the thrill of having the ear of one of the most powerful men in the land – though he confesses the prime minister would “stare at [him] sullenly for a moment or two, then say: ‘Get me Ed Balls.’” I certainly met plenty of chiefs of staff and spin doctors who jealously guarded their privileged access to a particular politician and their status as that MP’s “vicar on Earth”.
  • (7) Against a backdrop described by the King's Fund thinktank as "deepening pessimism about the ability of the NHS to make ends meet, particularly in 2015-16", many on the health side are sullenly resentful of "their" money going into the BCF.
  • (8) Factor analysis of this brief inventory resulted in eight factors: disorientation, impaired concentration and thinking, paranoid-hallucinatory symptoms, anxiety, sullen inadequacy (restraint depression), hostility, loss of control, giving up.
  • (9) Through a double-glazed window in an adjacent room, a sullen security guard in khaki watches over all.
  • (10) Shortly after midnight Friday, partygoers belted Purple Rain together, a notably moving moment amid a sullen day.
  • (11) That sullen death-stare she perfected as April in Parks & Rec should come in handy somewhere on the dark side, perhaps as a female Sith Lord – a Sith Lady, if you will.
  • (12) If you’re sensing that the Mill is bored, or better yet, indifferent, or better yet, showing all the sullen ardour of a husband obliging himself to make love to his wife in the thick of a carnal indifference, then take your right hand, place it over your left shoulder and give yourself a big old pat on the back.
  • (13) I interviewed G-Unit once (minus the banged-up Tony Yayo) and they were the antithesis of the sullen, aggressive rapper stereotype (although they did turn their noses up at the very idea of letting any of the "British food" at their 5-star hotel pass their lips, and sent their manager out for a McDonalds instead).
  • (14) There are roadblocks manned by sullen-looking teenagers cradling AK-47s, but no meaningful law and order.
  • (15) Behind came a straggling caravan of mules and porters, including a couple of teenage boys who watched the college girls with sullen fascination.
  • (16) McFadden's penalty brought City a point, at which point William Gallas went all precious, attacking an advertising board and sitting sullenly on the pitch after the final whistle.
  • (17) A period as manager of Port Vale, after Stoke had rather sullenly parted company with him, reducing his wages and refusing him complimentary tickets, was ill-starred.
  • (18) It made him look sullen, grumpy and at worst disengaged from his challenger.
  • (19) Obscenity is lecherous and sullen in regard to women and virulent towards men: it may then be interpreted as a mean of struggle against the anxiety of death.
  • (20) Manchester United survived a couple of scares in 2008 at Wigan, but ultimately won 2-0 comfortably, while in 2010 Chelsea romped to an 8-0 victory over Wigan at Stamford Bridge as United sullenly and pointlessly beat Stoke City 4-0 at home.