What's the difference between compassionate and ruthless?

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.

Ruthless


Definition:

  • (a.) Having no ruth; cruel; pitiless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) AB InBev has cut costs ruthlessly as it has bought up companies around the world, including Anheuser-Busch, the brewer of US beer Budweiser.
  • (2) As Greece pleads with its eurozone creditors for more time in meeting its fiscal adjustment targets, Dombrovskis is a fierce champion of surgical austerity applied quickly and ruthlessly.
  • (3) Rather than ruthlessly efficient, I have found them sweet and a bit hopeless."
  • (4) This thread ran through his later writings, which focused particularly on questions of the transformation of work and working time, envisaging the possibility that the productivity gains made possible by capitalism could be used to enhance individual and social life, rather than intensifying ruthless economic competition and social division.
  • (5) "Sometimes a handshake is just a handshake, but when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raúl Castro , it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant," said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican Congress member in Florida, told the US secretary of state, John Kerry.
  • (6) But Hilton insists critics are wrong to see the group as ruthless youngsters who meet purely to further their own careers.
  • (7) This is how powerful a hold it has over them.” Mossino, who works with refugees and asylum seekers as well as victims of trafficking, says that in the past decade the trade in Nigerian women has become a hugely profitable and ruthless criminal industry, controlled largely by Nigerian gangs that took root in Italy in the 1980s.
  • (8) On 12 September 1980, the head of the military, Kenan Evren, sent tanks rolling through the streets of the Turkish capital and installed a ruthless military government.
  • (9) The "consultation" and "informed consent" the reports insist must take place before the project goes ahead are a sick joke in a region in which dissent is ruthlessly crushed and people are imprisoned and tortured simply for speaking their own language.
  • (10) She is also waiting to hear if she has won a second Olivier award, this time for her role as the ruthless Hollywood agent in The Little Dog Laughed, the play that transferred from Broadway to the West End last year.
  • (11) A boss on some astronomic pay packet may be held back by shame from paying his cleaners too little relative to that, but emotion will not get in the way of ruthlessness if the process all takes place behind the veil of some corporate contract.
  • (12) "What is clear is that they are as ruthless as any Islamist group or terrorists anywhere in the world," said Antony Goldman, a west Africa risk analyst at London-based PM Consulting.
  • (13) The often confusing circumstances that led to their courts martial and the ruthlessness of their punishments only fully came to light with the publication in 1989 of Julian Putkowski and Julian Sykes's history Shot at Dawn .
  • (14) If there was reason to be worried following five successive defeats, their worst run of the century, they showed no sign of panic during a ruthless attacking performance which guarantees they will spend Christmas in the top six.
  • (15) She was ambitious, and Colonel Gaddafi has always promoted ruthless people.
  • (16) Every couple of years, evidence emerges to underline the unparalleled nature of the state onslaught and ruthless rule-breaking to overcome resistance in the mining communities, bought at a cost of £37bn in today's prices .
  • (17) The footage underscores the ruthlessness of fighting in Pakistan's border areas, where the army has also faced allegations of massacres.
  • (18) Philip French championed Boyle's career from the outset, describing his debut feature film, Shallow Grave , as "a good piece of storytelling... Hitchcock would have admired its ruthlessness and cruel humour."
  • (19) In the past decade, European migration was used as a sort of 21st-century incomes policy in Britain as employers ruthlessly exploited migrant labour to hold down wages – which have since been cut in real terms for four years in a row as a result of the crisis.
  • (20) But we can all probably do without Fifa's "fair play in marketing" lectures, which clothe commercial ruthlessness in the language of sporting decency, apparently oblivious to the impression given by wallpapering every stadium with signs that push BP or declare "We proudly accept only Visa".