What's the difference between comical and risible?

Comical


Definition:

  • (a.) Relating to comedy.
  • (a.) Exciting mirth; droll; laughable; as, a comical story.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Because such a possibility seems so remote as to be comic.
  • (2) NGOs and foundations • Comic Relief Announced new funding of £1m at the conference.
  • (3) After heading for Rome with his long-term partner, Howard Auster, he returned to fiction with a bestselling novel, Julian, based on the life of a late Roman emperor; a political novel, Washington DC, based on his own family; and Myra Breckinridge, a subversive satire that examined contradictions of gender and sexuality with enough comic brio to become a worldwide bestseller.
  • (4) The trip raised millions for Comic Relief but prompted some uncharitable headlines after it emerged in July that Parfitt had billed the taxpayer £541.83 for "specialist clothing" – and a further £26.20 for the cost of picking it up in a cab.
  • (5) In October, Amazon announces a digital partnership with DC Comics, prompting Barnes & Noble to remove its comic books from its shelves.
  • (6) "The only thing missing for true greatness however has been that comical touch that comes each time England figure out a new way to completely discombobulate themselves as they crash out.
  • (7) Comic writing can be a brutal, unforgiving business, yet it can produce great and multi-layered prose, combining comedy, pathos and satire.
  • (8) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
  • (9) In 2000 the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm showed an owl in a tree calling "Whom" and a raccoon on the ground replying "Show-off!"
  • (10) That's in 1888; by 1890 the tone is of comic resignation (there is much comedy in these pages) as Edmond realises that he has devoted the whole of his life "to a special sort of literature: the sort that brings one trouble".
  • (11) He will continue to work part time for BBC radio on leadership development and take on an advisory role with Comic Relief.
  • (12) iPhone Shifter: Interactive Graphic Novel (Free) What was that about interesting things in the world of digital comics?
  • (13) Ian Livingstone is not all that keen on being photographed near the life-sized model of Lara Croft in his study – even though he was largely responsible for launching her on the world nearly 20 years ago, and the heroine of the Tomb Raider video games, comics and films helped to make his fortune.
  • (14) Trump’s tragic Nam story is captured in the film Apocalypse Ow.” On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the comic examined the timing of Trump’s Nordstrom tweet, noting that it came just 21 minutes after he was supposed to be in his daily intelligence briefing.
  • (15) "I'm not going to suddenly stop admiring his unique comic talent because I've switched teams," Allen told the Guardian.
  • (16) Between festivals, Hardee played cameo roles in TV comedies such as Blackadder and The Comic Strip, and ran his own comedy club, the Tunnel, which he had opened at the southern end of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1984; it acquired a fearsome reputation as a graveyard for aspiring standups.
  • (17) The ex-comic ruled out giving a crucial confidence vote in parliament to a centre-left government and reiterated that the M5S's new legion of deputies and senators would vote on laws on a case-by-case basis.
  • (18) There have always been geeks and fans here, it’s just now they call it Comic-Con.
  • (19) Zack Snyder's comic-book reimagining, which opens in the UK and US this Friday, is being tipped for an impressive box office haul.
  • (20) His comic adventures are too many to relate, but it may be said that they culminate in a café of 'singing waiters' where, after a wealth of comic 'business' with the tray, he shows his disdain for articulate speech by singing a vividly explicit song in gibberish.

Risible


Definition:

  • (a.) Having the faculty or power of laughing; disposed to laugh.
  • (a.) Exciting laughter; worthy to be laughed at; amusing.
  • (a.) Used in, or expressing, laughter; as, risible muscles.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is all too easy to show that RT’s coverage is rife with conspiracy theories and risible fabrications: one programme showed fake documents intended to prove that the US was guiding the Ukrainian government to ethnically cleanse Russian speakers from western Ukraine.
  • (2) "For the most part the rewards for acquiescing to GOC demands are risible: pomp-full dinners and meetings and, for the most pliant, a photo op with one of the Castro brothers.
  • (3) They are meant to keep the blood of the masses at a risible level, should they be called upon for serviceable violence.
  • (4) Even when it summons up the courage to state the bleeding obvious, such as the fact that the Quill, a risible block of student housing next to the Shard, is poorly designed, Cabe is ignored.
  • (5) Mulholland said the idea that Megrahi had acted alone was "risible", and said "justice has only partly been done".
  • (6) Long before they tucked into the starters there was something whiffy about the relationship between No 10 and News International: why did the prime minister stand by his PR man long after most sentient people had concluded that his denials of involvement in phone-hacking were risible?
  • (7) Shadow justice secretary, Lord Falconer, described the £10m cash injection as a “risibly small” response to the prisons crisis.
  • (8) In the face of the scale of the prison crisis the £10m looks risibly small.
  • (9) The incidental pleasures in Fading Gigolo start with its sweet and slightly risible premise: John Turturro – a florist named Fioravante – has the sexual magic touch for the lonely, libidinous matrons of the One Percent.
  • (10) The idea of a social mobility drive , contingent as it is on the supposition that parents need convincing that their children should have a better life than they themselves received, may seem risible – but let's suspend disbelief.
  • (11) He said: “Those elements are risible and in many ways pathetic.
  • (12) 36 min: Korea have got a foothold in this game now, attacking strongly down either flank - Lee Young-pyo goes on a long meander here - but time and again the final ball is utterly risible.
  • (13) The following day, Dimbleby was interested to see how Griffin's party had reportedly turned on their leader for giving a risible account of himself.
  • (14) A source from the Department for Education (DfE) used even stronger language, describing the review as "risible", but a source at the council accused the government of "social worker bashing".
  • (15) Sky seems to have devoted a whole channel to them.” He leaves no doubt that this is a risible state of affairs.
  • (16) "Megrahi was a member of the Libyan security service – it is risible to think that he acted alone.
  • (17) Any idea that they want a life on benefits is risible when all they want is a decent job and a future."
  • (18) 2.00pm GMT Deadline day, the action so far ... • David Beckham is en route to PSG for a medical • Mario Balotelli has finalised his move to AC Milan • Swansea striker Danny Graham is at Sunderland to discuss personal terms and do a medical • Norwich City have tabled a bid for Celtic striker Gary Hooper • Newcastle owner Mike Ashley arrived at work in a helicopter • Chris Samba has joined QPR for £12.5m and will be paid the risibly small sum of £100,000 per week.
  • (19) Worse still, it concluded, if Europe failed to surmount its economic crisis the prize would be a “risible memory, or worse, an epitaph for what Europe could have been, should have been.” 11.33am BST Aid donations My colleague Mark Tran, the Guardian's Global Development correspondent, has sent this as a counterpoint to the detractors: Something positive to say about the EU.
  • (20) The RA’s search for echoes of Rubens even when they are very tenuous becomes quite risible.