What's the difference between contempt and smirk?

Contempt


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of contemning or despising; the feeling with which one regards that which is esteemed mean, vile, or worthless; disdain; scorn.
  • (n.) The state of being despised; disgrace; shame.
  • (n.) An act or expression denoting contempt.
  • (n.) Disobedience of the rules, orders, or process of a court of justice, or of rules or orders of a legislative body; disorderly, contemptuous, or insolent language or behavior in presence of a court, tending to disturb its proceedings, or impair the respect due to its authority.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This "paradox of redistribution" was certainly observable in Britain, where Welfare retained its status as one of the 20th century's most exalted creations, even while those claiming benefits were treated with ever greater contempt.
  • (2) Refusing either to acquiesce in, or to rail at, Eliot's contempt for Jews, one strives to do justice to the many injustices Eliot does to Jews.
  • (3) But if it succeeds in getting a ban on the eight named phones, it could add the Galaxy S3 to the list through a more rapid "contempt proceeding" before the judge, according to legal experts.
  • (4) Yes, Goldsmith is to be held in contempt: a man of decency would have rejected this gutter strategy.
  • (5) "To prosecute someone for contempt of court is quite a serious step.
  • (6) Plagued by prison riots, IRA breakouts, illegal deportations, verdicts that found him in contempt of court, and over-hasty legislation on dogs, he acquired a reputation – as home secretaries often do – for being accident-prone.
  • (7) All the while, they are treated with a dismissiveness that borders on contempt.
  • (8) Perhaps monstering earns underdog sympathy, with contempt for the press as rife as contempt for conventional politics.
  • (9) Skylight review – Nighy and Mulligan in moving mixture of politics and love | Michael Billington Read more Commentators write glibly about the public’s increasing contempt for politicians, and yet what goes unremarked, and is equally damaging, is politicians’ growing contempt for us.
  • (10) A report on phone hacking published by the select committee on standards and privileges concluded hacking could be in contempt, "if it can be shown to have interfered with the work of the house or to have impeded or obstructed an MP from taking part in such work".
  • (11) Even the most “apolitical” of writers had found it difficult to conceal their contempt for the state of the country.
  • (12) Every detail of the dissolution honours betrayed contempt for the public.
  • (13) Above a fairly straightforward news story about the court’s decision to allow the country’s elected representatives a vote on the biggest constitutional upheaval in a generation, initially the headline read: “Yet again the elite show their contempt for Brexit voters!” Call me ‘remoaner-in-chief’, but I won’t be voting to trigger article 50 | Owen Smith Read more Launched within an hour of the verdict, the headline went on: “Supreme Court rules Theresa May CANNOT trigger Britain’s departure from the EU without MPs’ approval … as Remain campaigners gloat.” The copy itself provided little evidence of gloating.
  • (14) The government’s green paper on parliamentary privilege , published in 2012, said: [Parliament’s] power to punish non-members for contempt is untested in recent times.
  • (15) A move by the chancellor in the autumn statement to reverse the planned cuts to work allowances would send a strong message that the government’s welcome rhetoric is being backed by bold policy decisions.” The Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, said: “Theresa May and Philip Hammond have as much contempt for low income families as David Cameron and George Osborne ever did.
  • (16) I felt deeply grateful, but I also realised that my contempt for the non-hardcore readers – the softer core readers... not contempt, but my writing them off, had been premature.
  • (17) In a statement, the network added: "The crackdown on activists, being directly related to the anniversary, demonstrates contempt towards international human rights norms and insincerity in the government's own pledges and commitments to promote human rights in China ."
  • (18) Obstetrics was held in contempt by professionally educated and registered physicians and apothecaries, however, because of the immodesty and messiness of the work and the long hours involved.
  • (19) Return of Rebekah Brooks is 'two fingers up to British public' – shadow minister Read more “I am now standing up against those that sit back and treat us all with contempt – the Murdochs and Brooks of the world,” Hanna said in a two-minute video released on Friday.
  • (20) "We had the absurd position this week of even MPs in our democratically elected parliament being threatened with potential contempt of court by using their parliamentary privilege to name people.

Smirk


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To smile in an affected or conceited manner; to smile with affected complaisance; to simper.
  • (n.) A forced or affected smile; a simper.
  • (a.) Nice,; smart; spruce; affected; simpering.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) 5.14pm GMT Alan Pardew speaks ... With a smirk playing around his chops in a charm offensive on Sky Sports, he says he ‘massively regrets” sticking the hid on Hull City midfielder David Meyler and says he’ll be sitting down for matches in the future.
  • (2) If Kyrgios cares about his career – and sometimes he is so blase about his success, wealth and celebrity he professes to hate tennis – the hip young dude from Canberra who smirks when he should be smiling, who plainly is struggling with fame, needs to understand he is not the only clown in town.
  • (3) He often seems mysteriously amused, cocking an eyebrow and pulling a coy, wouldn’t-you-like-to-know smirk, but he likes to laugh out loud, too.
  • (4) Asked about his repeated gestures, grins and smirks towards the victims, she said it brought back memories of seeing him at Srebrenica.
  • (5) "Now we know our fortresses are secure," says their president, Tim Farron, a smirk of triumph in his voice, "we can collect 25 or 30 more Tory seats."
  • (6) They get angry at the justice minister’s smirk as he refutes “any security gap” when in fact the bombs exploded close to an interior ministry building and the headquarters of the Turkish national intelligence organisations.
  • (7) He has a way of holding a half-smile on his face while listening to his opponent that appears perilously close to a smirk.
  • (8) It can take all of a parent's ingenuity to get though a shopping trip without unwillingly picking up a tin of Barbie spaghetti shapes, a box of cereal with Lightning McQueen smirking from the front, or a bag of fruit chews with a catchy jingle.
  • (9) His bastard Ramsay has shown his colors (whatever color is for sadism), but Roose – who abstains from alcohol and only offers a smirk at Lady Stark here, a frown with Jaime Lannister there – is still a cypher.
  • (10) Bidisha : Two sexist remarks and one misogynist one At a major literary festival, before an event about military fiction, a posh famous English author smirked to me, "What's the difference between a woman and a piece of toast?
  • (11) I saw the smirk, too, when I went on the road with Prince and the Revolution two years later, accompanying the 1999 tour on several dates through the Midwest.
  • (12) They might have been even more shaken had they known that the men in casual clothes handing them these strange, badly set little pamphlets – with their funereal black borders and another death’s head leering at them inside next to the smirking wish “Good luck” – were members of New York’s police forces.
  • (13) With such knowledge comes a predictable illusion of power, though this is all too regularly punctured by the indignity of being kicked out of shiny receptions and told to use an entrance more befitting of our lowly status – or of having my pronunciation of “Southwark Street” incorrectly corrected by a receptionist, who gives her colleague a sidelong smirk, commiserating over my supposed ignorance.
  • (14) When I look at their faces, I see nothing but bravado, whether it’s Beyoncé’s stoicism, Kerry Washington’s smirk or Serena’s confidence.
  • (15) The camera cuts to Groves in the audience, who is smirking at Froch's words.
  • (16) Leonardo DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, the sadistic plantation owner, smirking into the zoom lens.
  • (17) A political debate that revolves around sniggering at women’s body parts and smirks about gay hairdressers?
  • (18) On another occasion, as the judge addressed Mladic about the procedure, the defendant appeared to switch off and turned to the victims again, smirking and nodding at them.
  • (19) On Thursday, she was pictured semi-naked on the cover of the Daily Star, a cut out of the heads of presenters Ant and Dec over each of her breasts, above a smirking caption claiming that "Naughty Nadine Dorries has boobed again!"
  • (20) The Catholic father in Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall is just the most implacable enemy of nice-as-pie communists showing everyone a good time; the village imam in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep is an ingratiating, smirking creep; and the local rev in The Homesman (as played by John Lithgow) is definitely a weasel, rather too obviously grateful not to have to transport three traumatised frontierwomen back east.