What's the difference between clumsy and inept?

Clumsy


Definition:

  • (superl.) Stiff or benumbed, as with cold.
  • (superl.) Without skill or grace; wanting dexterity, nimbleness, or readiness; stiff; awkward, as if benumbed; unwieldy; unhandy; hence; ill-made, misshapen, or inappropriate; as, a clumsy person; a clumsy workman; clumsy fingers; a clumsy gesture; a clumsy excuse.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In both, objective aggravation occurred in three or more steps over four days, progressing from minor finger clumsiness to total paralysis of the arm.
  • (2) Since she was 25-year-old, she had had insomnia which accompanied by choked feelings, palpitations, clumsiness of hands and anxiety.
  • (3) Salmond and his finance secretary, John Swinney, have pushed for Scotland to be given control over corporation tax, excise duties and greater borrowing powers in the new bill, but those measures were rejected as ill thought out and clumsy by the UK government and Labour.
  • (4) The problem is that, whilst severely affected children can be readily recognized, identification of mildly and moderately clumsy children is difficult.
  • (5) Clumsy US tactics and policies exacerbated a deteriorating situation.
  • (6) Several lines from the 1984 song were heavily criticised here and in Africa for being clumsy and patronising, including the one about no rivers flowing in Africa – the continent of the Nile, Congo and Niger.
  • (7) Ethanol impaired performance in most objective tests and produced clumsiness, muzziness, and mental slowness, but little drowsiness.
  • (8) The unfairly maligned camel is a model of sleek, practical and elegant design compared with the clumsy creature the coalition has produced.
  • (9) The arcane wiring when electricity came along, the subsequent clumsy rewiring; the cheap flat conversion in the 1960s; the constant saga of patch and mend from occupants who never have the money or vision to remake the whole thing from scratch - all this, and more, was paralleled on the WCML on an enormous scale.
  • (10) It is difficult to comprehend the logic of expecting improvements in this agenda while withdrawing half a billion dollars in funding to many service agencies, and leaving them poised precariously at the mercy of a clumsy and poorly executed “advancement” strategy.
  • (11) DZ but not O 60 was reported to have caused lethargy and clumsiness during subchronic treatment.
  • (12) A nine year-old girl admitted to our hospital complaining of clumsiness of hands and walking, disability of reading, headache and vomiting.
  • (13) Her main project is new girl Tai (the late Brittany Murphy) who arrives at school as a clumsy, unconfident "ugly duckling" ripe for making over – allowing the film to indulge in that wonderful 80s teen movie trope: the dressing up montage.
  • (14) Clinical syndromes were classified according to Fisher's criteria into pure motor hemiparesis (PM), sensorimotor stroke (SM) and ataxic hemiparesis (AH) including dysarthria clumsy hand syndrome.
  • (15) Observations by parents and teachers rated the clumsy children inferior to their controls in writing, sporting ability and clumsiness.
  • (16) Even if the move seemed dictatorial in the short term, it served to enshrine a constitution that in the long-term actually curtails Morsi's power – which to the Brotherhood makes his actions well-intentioned, if clumsy.
  • (17) The children with learning disabilities were divided into two groups--"clumsy" and "nonclumsy"--based on their scores on the motor impairment test.
  • (18) Fulham were furious in 2012 when Liverpool's attempt to take Clint Dempsey from them saw the Merseyside club deliver clumsy bulletins.
  • (19) Analysis of the data indicated that, as expected, the clumsy children with learning disabilities scored significantly lower than the children without learning disabilities (the control group).
  • (20) Abnormal clumsiness in otherwise normal children has often been associated with both perceptual and motor defects, but the cause of this problem remains unclear.

Inept


Definition:

  • (a.) Not apt or fit; unfit; unsuitable; improper; unbecoming.
  • (a.) Silly; useless; nonsensical; absurd; foolish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Plibersek’s spokesman said on Friday: “Who is Mr Brandis to dictate the language on the Middle East peace negotiations?” The spokesman said the intervention this week amounted to “another foreign policy embarrassment for the Abbott government, which is why [Brandis] was forced by the foreign minister and the Foreign Affairs Department to rush out a statement about his inept pronouncements.” Labor ran into its own controversy earlier this year when Bill Shorten appeared to telegraph a shift in policy around the description of settlements in a major speech to the Zionist Federation of Australia.
  • (2) Ever since the ex-PD leader Walter Veltroni started praising President Kennedy as a way to jettison communism, this has been an abiding theme, manifesting itself institutionally in the desperate attempt to engineer a US-style two-party system through breathtakingly inept electoral reforms – the latest one, the " Porcellum " (after porcello, swine), was behind the impasse earlier this year.
  • (3) The head seems to float uncomfortably above the collar, while the doublet is ineptly managed.
  • (4) Its structure was elucidated by IR, UV, FAB-MS, and various NMR spectra (including NOE, BBD, INEPT, SR, COSY, NOESY etc.
  • (5) Their barking drew an entertaining rebuke from Ta-Nehisi Coates to which we cannot resist linking, however: Carlson's descent from reasonably credible magazine journalist to inept race hustler is well mapped territory.
  • (6) I have to say that arranging your move so that you actually become homeless for a month is pretty much the definition of inept.
  • (7) The structures of the loureirins 1-4 were elucidated through interpretation of their spectroscopic data, with particular use being made of the selective INEPT nmr technique.
  • (8) As an inexperienced and diplomatically inept minister in the early 1970s, Thatcher clashed with what was later called "the education establishment".
  • (9) The government has handled the "£9,000 student fees" affair ineptly, near paralysed by political correctness.
  • (10) "Mr Hester's job at RBS in the last three years has not been made any easier by the incompetence of EU politicians, whose inept and moribund approach to the sovereign debt crisis has trashed the banking sector's value.
  • (11) spectrum were given for these dolichols by using model compounds and INEPT (insensitive nuclei enhanced by polarization transfer) measurement.
  • (12) The basic principles applied are the VOSY pulse scheme for volume selection and the INEPT sequence for homonuclear polarization transfer from the CH to the CH3 groups.
  • (13) "The crumbling of key pillars of Israel's security … coupled with the most diplomatically inept and strategically incompetent government in Israel's history have put Israel in a very dangerous situation," declared New York Times columnist Tom Friedman last month.
  • (14) So could I counter with a 'tactically inept' regarding England?
  • (15) But their attempts are suspiciously theatrical and inept – with the "demonstrators" at one point advancing in a hopeless Roman-style assault.
  • (16) Congress granted qualified immunity from liability for peer review participation to physicians, osteopaths and dentists, created a national practitioner data bank to track inept, incompetent or unprofessional physicians, and enacted procedural rules for due process, privilege restrictions, and reporting and disbursement of information.
  • (17) The INEPT (insensitive nucleus enhancement by polarization transfer) experiment [Morris, G. A., & Freeman, R. (1979) J.
  • (18) If you think Isis arose from the US invasion of Iraq, not the vacuum created by its inept occupation and premature withdrawal, good luck again.
  • (19) Friedman and Schwartz made a convincing case that it was inept monetary management by the Federal Reserve Bank that was the main culprit.
  • (20) The present Queen’s legacy may look very different once the future of the monarchy is in the inept hands of her eldest son.