What's the difference between coax and flattery?

Coax


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To persuade by gentle, insinuating courtesy, flattering, or fondling; to wheedle; to soothe.
  • (n.) A simpleton; a dupe.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) How did Panahi manage to coax a performance out of him?
  • (2) But then came a challenge I couldn't turn down – busking outside Camden tube station with Billy Bragg , one of my musical and political heroes, who was happy to tutor and coax me through our favourite playlist.
  • (3) Coaxing form from the forward is another of Sherwood's early achievements.
  • (4) Human interaction made captivity more tolerable, so she coaxed it out of her kidnappers where possible.
  • (5) Sneijder is the last man standing from the Inter side that José Mourinho coaxed to victory over Bayern Munich in Madrid, six days after wrapping up the Italian league title and 17 after their domestic cup win.
  • (6) Consumer confidence has bounced back; the long-moribund housing market has been coaxed back to life even outside the capital; and retail sales are rising, helped by all the carpets and kitchens homebuyers need to kit out their new nests.
  • (7) Mr Salmond and his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, tried again early yesterday to coax the Lib Dems into accepting yet another olive branch: to put their intense disagreements on an independence referendum aside while trying to agree common ground on domestic policies.
  • (8) Getting someone to cut down their smoking or change their diet is by coaxing, negotiation.
  • (9) Goodes said it was the support of Swans fans that coaxed him into extending his club record games tally to 372.
  • (10) The judge, Faisal Arab, had been trying to coax Musharraf to voluntarily submit to appearing in court ever since the hearings began in late December.
  • (11) Some were fished out of the water with the help of holidaymakers from the campsite opposite who used their own boats; others were coaxed out of their hiding places on the island.
  • (12) However, he was less convinced by Ant's musical merits, and coaxed his band members into forming a new group, Bow Wow Wow, which would be led by a 13-year-old girl whom McLaren met at a dry cleaners and renamed Annabella Lwin.
  • (13) On the face of it, the decision to suspend talks is a blow to the US secretary of state, John Kerry , who has spent almost nine months trying to coax Israelis and Palestinians into an agreement about the conflict's most contentious issues.
  • (14) He coaxes Hicks into repeating what Colonel Gibson told Hicks about not being able to deploy from Tripoli to Benghazi.
  • (15) She would far prefer to use the collective voice of future Sandbag members to coax the big industrial polluters into handing over their surplus credits than have to rely on members to buy them.
  • (16) The same gift of the gab that a good hotel manager deploys to schmooze an irate guest complaining about draughts made the difference between life and death; he cajoled and coaxed, flattered and deceived, lied and bribed.
  • (17) A similar strategy has informed my translation; although my own part of England is separated from Lud's Church by the swollen uplands of the Peak District, coaxing Gawain and his poem back into the Pennines was always part of the plan.
  • (18) Truly, Brexit has stirred something not heroic or celebratory or generous in the nation, but instead has coaxed into the light from some dark, damp places the lowest human impulses, from the small-minded to the mean-spirited to the murderous.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gina Miller at the Convention on Brexit.
  • (19) So what Ed Miliband should do – rather than trying to coax employers into slowly but surely adopting the living wage (which by his own thesis, some businesses – the predators – may never do), he should cut to the chase and raise the minimum wage to the living wage, thus ensuring that no one in our society is paid a wage on which it is impossible to live.
  • (20) But organisers of Wednesday’s anti-Murphy meeting are canvassing support from constituency Labour parties in a bid to push Murphy into voluntarily standing down, and to coax other critics of his leadership at Holyrood into publicly calling for his resignation.

Flattery


Definition:

  • (v. t.) The act or practice of flattering; the act of pleasing by artiful commendation or compliments; adulation; false, insincere, or excessive praise.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But when I started turning up at strategy meetings at 6.45am each day in Millbank Tower, key planners such as Robin Cook and Patricia Hewitt took to going into corridors and lowering their voices, making it obvious that they disapproved of my presence, which they regarded as proof of Kinnock’s fatal susceptibility to flattery.
  • (2) For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.” The Saudis read Trump accurately from the time he took office – they understood that he craved flattery and respect.
  • (3) That's because at the root of this pro-censorship case is self-flattery: the idea that one is so intrinsically Good and Noble and Elevated that one is incapable of hatred: only those warped people over there, those benighted souls, are plagued with such poison.
  • (4) Asked about the BBC's new venture, Ed O'Keefe, editor-in-chief of NowThis News, said: "We're blushing – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.
  • (5) They say that imitation is the best form of flattery.
  • (6) Arab leaders, especially the oil-rich monarchs, are used to flattery since they live with it every day.
  • (7) Read more Hunt didn’t pick this fight , but he’s deploying the strategy of every beleaguered health secretary since Aneurin Bevan: threats, flattery, promises and pledges.
  • (8) Even his exaggerated politeness and flattery comes across as either patronising or false.
  • (9) You could have been a movie star,” says Stone, looking at the screen and playing the flattery card.
  • (10) I think one has to be careful not to succumb to flattery.” Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, faced several questions pertaining to Trump’s appearance at the foreign policy town hall.
  • (11) This one is said to have belonged to a disciple, the painter Sir Peter Lely, who lavished equal flattery on the court of Charles II.
  • (12) In April, Minecraft received the priceless flattery of a parody on The Simpsons .
  • (13) One of the interesting things about Head of State is how comfortable Marr is with the ways in which information can be extracted – by journalists from politicians, by politicians from journalists, by power-brokers from each other – with a mix of flattery and veiled threat, long memories and manipulation.
  • (14) Asked what he thought of Sky's new Saturday schedule, which will segue from its Football League lunchtime match, to Soccer Saturday, to its new regular teatime live Premier League game and then Football First in front of a studio audience, Watson said: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."
  • (15) The word from Fleet: 'I don't see Theresa May as another backstabber' Read more You might cling to the butler’s mole theory even as you worry that your hopes are loosening your grip on reality: the powerful faction that wanted to remain, and whispered flattery and enticements in Gove’s ear, has cleared the field of Johnson, the other side’s most powerful contender, and eased one of its own into place as PM.
  • (16) The negative view is the depressing capacity of right-thinking media representatives to tame "extremists", showing that everyone, even the most eccentric dissidents, are susceptible to flattery, inclusion and the kindness of power.
  • (17) Supervisors are alerted to hostile-dependent strategies, such as seductive flattery, that serve immediate ego-protective needs but ultimately block the attainment of fuller professional functioning.
  • (18) The immediate crisis can be traced back directly to Trump’s first trip abroad as president, to Riyadh on 20 May , when he was feted and showered with flattery.
  • (19) The Barcelona president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, continued his club’s flattery of Suárez on Wednesday when praising the forward for publicly apologising for biting the Italy defender despite his initial claim to Fifa that he fell into Chiellini teeth-first.
  • (20) Nobody has ever been as good as Jonathan Ross at straddling this funny-fawning axis, because it is nearly impossible (flattery has to be sincere; jokes have to be not sincere.