What's the difference between compassionate and dispassionate?

Compassionate


Definition:

  • (a.) Having a temper or disposition to pity; sympathetic; merciful.
  • (a.) Complaining; inviting pity; pitiable.
  • (v. t.) To have compassion for; to pity; to commiserate; to sympathize with.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He added that the appearance this week on Libyan television of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi showed it had been a mistake by the Scottish justice minister to release him on compassionate grounds in 2009.
  • (2) The Frenchman has been excused from duty at Everton on Saturday on compassionate grounds and the club have put no time frame on his possible return.
  • (3) This was greeted by a furious wall of sound from Labour, which only grew when he added: "The last government failed to prioritise compassionate care … they tried to shut down the whistleblowers …" It was pure party-political point-scoring, matched in spades by Labour's Andy Burnham.
  • (4) Matthew d’Ancona : She’s a risk-taker, and a potentially transformative leader Theresa May may be a compassionate Conservative, but her arrival in Downing Street has been anything but a velvet revolution.
  • (5) These people have travelled for hundreds of miles to reach us, I wanted to show what British justice meant, to show him the character of this country is actually compassionate.” The man had £35 on a top-up card to use in specified shops, and was not allowed to take any form of work.
  • (6) Megrahi, who is dying of prostate cancer, was freed by Scotland on compassionate grounds after serving eight years of a life sentence over the attack.
  • (7) We all have our own unique DNA and our own life experiences.” But rather than run from the family name entirely, the former Florida governor is appealing instead to his party’s sense of noblesse oblige – crafting a new version of his brother’s somewhat faded brand of compassionate conservatism.
  • (8) He fulfilled a difficult role in a progressive and compassionate way … he has done his utmost to transform the CPS's record on rape and domestic violence, delivering improved conviction rates for both.
  • (9) They had announced Thursday that "as a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased."
  • (10) The pledge to meet the international aid target is one of the few remaining vestiges of the pre-government, compassionate Conservative Cameron.
  • (11) When I look at photographs that try to move the world to compassionate action I am haunted by Jurgen Stroop .
  • (12) Evidence from America, and from the 15 NHS hospitals that have so far introduced them, shows that Schwartz Centre Rounds "help hospital and care staff support each other and learn about how to deal better with tough situations, and spend more time focussed on caring for patients in a compassionate way", he added.
  • (13) He said: “Among the horror of the refugee crisis, one of the most harrowing images has been the thousands of orphaned children fleeing conflict.” “Britain has always been a compassionate and welcoming country, and I am delighted that the government has finally, after months of pressure, committed to vital humanitarian aid.
  • (14) He said that it had made its decision on compassionate grounds, and that any suggestion that lobbying had taken place was a "matter for BP to answer".
  • (15) She looks at me compassionately, as if I have sunstroke.
  • (16) We are already the most compassionate and generous country in the world and it is not even close.” “No other country provides anywhere near the amount of assistance for hurting people around the world as we do.
  • (17) In the foreword, iconic black activist Angela Davis describes Shakur as a "compassionate human being with an unswerving commitment to justice".
  • (18) Investment in young children is discussed as a prudent as well as a compassionate policy, one which will reduce future health care costs and enhance our position in the international economy.
  • (19) The verdict in the Kay Gilderdale case is further evidence that the law on mercy killing is out of date, experts say, and unable to deal properly with public views on compassionate death and assisted suicide.
  • (20) When it was her turn in front of Mengele [the murderous Auschwitz doctor who notoriously experimented on inmates], my mother told him that she was pregnant, hoping he would be compassionate ... Mengele snapped “ Du dumme gans ” [you stupid goose] and ordered her to the right.” That meant she had been chosen for forced labour, rather than the gas chamber.

Dispassionate


Definition:

  • (a.) Free from passion; not warped, prejudiced, swerved, or carried away by passion or feeling; judicial; calm; composed.
  • (a.) Not dictated by passion; not proceeding from temper or bias; impartial; as, dispassionate proceedings; a dispassionate view.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He was not very active politically, but "current affairs", as he more dispassionately called it, had come to fascinate him and he left university with "a hunger to be involved in the game in some way," Ganesh says.
  • (2) Any reduction of emissions contributes to the prevention of dangerous climate change and as a developed country the Netherlands should take the lead in this.” After a legal campaign that took two and a half years to get to its first hearing in April, normally dispassionate lawyers were visibly moved by the judge’s words.
  • (3) Céspedes has the potential to be a dynamic player and from a dispassionate viewpoint, it’s probably a no-brainer of a trade.
  • (4) The high-minded answer to that would offer an Enlightenment fable of dispassionate scientific curiosity.
  • (5) Only once during the trial did a crack appear in his dispassionate facade.
  • (6) In the first case, we have to be dispassionate even when the issues arouse great passion.
  • (7) Prompt, dispassionate physician counseling, wider provision of National Health Service facilities, and uniform service in all districts would also be beneficial.
  • (8) Real hope and opportunity, if it is to arise at all, will do so from a raw and dispassionate assessment of the scale of the challenge faced by the global community."
  • (9) Even more seriously, in the short-term, voters believe that the Smith commission’s proposals on fresh powers – the so-called “vow” – are a letdown and not, as Labour claims and dispassionate analysis confirms, a big devolutionary package.
  • (10) In the absence of dispassionate investigation, proper legal process, or even official regret, the suspicion of state complicity remains.
  • (11) Sadly for any potential babe-botherers out there, the film is actually a dispassionate coming-of-age indie flick set in a washed-out town on the west coast of Sweden, where two teenage girls attempt to navigate the psychological minefield of those strange years just before womanhood.
  • (12) From now on, Griffith-Jones wrote, for the abuse to remain legal, Mau Mau suspects must be beaten mainly on their upper body, "vulnerable parts of the body should not be struck, particularly the spleen, liver or kidneys", and it was important that "those who administer violence … should remain collected, balanced and dispassionate".
  • (13) I can't find the words to describe dispassionately what I have gone through but I remember another reason why I gave up on New Labour, on my country.
  • (14) The rather neutral ground of college allows for relatively dispassionate examination of traditional moral teaching and peer group values.
  • (15) Comments concerning a report on the consequences of induced abortion which cite the author's book, ''Legal Abortion: the English Experience'' focus on the author's desire to provide a dispassionate survey on an emotionally charged issue.
  • (16) We’re an independent company and we are simply doing what economists do and we are impartial and dispassionate in the way that we conduct our economic analysis.” Morrison said the report proved that the Coalition’s slow and steady approach on negative gearing was the right one.
  • (17) Divine judgment, they believed, was neither flawless nor dispassionate; it was warped by lust, vengeance and self-interest.
  • (18) It is hoped this new medical technology will satisfy the desire of Mackenzie for "comparative evaluation of medical remedies and different modes of treatment of disease by the lynx-eyed scrutiny of dispassionate analysis."
  • (19) On all sides the fixation on the “genocide” issue is likely to cloud any dispassionate assessment of the verdict, as if crimes against humanity were not horrific enough.
  • (20) The dominant belief that all politicians are contemptible, promoted not just by public entertainers like Hislop but by rightwing libertarian blogger Guido Fawkes among many others in the media, is not grounded in fact, is profoundly pessimistic, and is far from being a dispassionate depiction of the world.