What's the difference between contemptible and pusillanimous?

Contemptible


Definition:

  • (a.) Worthy of contempt; deserving of scorn or disdain; mean; vile; despicable.
  • (a.) Despised; scorned; neglected; abject.
  • (a.) Insolent; scornful; contemptuous.

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.

Pusillanimous


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind; of weak spirit; mean-spirited; spiritless; cowardly; -- said of persons, as, a pussillanimous prince.
  • (a.) Evincing, or characterized by, weakness of mind, and want of courage; feeble; as, pusillanimous counsels.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is a pusillanimous, jargon-ridden, self-perpetuating proof of Parkinson's law .
  • (2) Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” the Mail asks.
  • (3) To be a bystander when one's discipline does offer insights and methods of value discernment is pusillanimous.
  • (4) He was the government’s top Europe adviser at David Cameron’s side throughout Britain’s EU renegotiation, where some accused him of pusillanimity in the face of Brussels intransigence .
  • (5) Result: the normally admirable Mr Grieve risked seeming a pusillanimous ministerial jobsworth unwilling to let the public learn the full truth about our foolish and meddling heir to the throne.
  • (6) But to make that a reason to abandon the policy would be pusillanimous in the extreme.
  • (7) This may be just what ministers' friends say to appease backbench plotters feeling betrayed by the apparent pusillanimity of cabinet failure to jump after Purnell.
  • (8) The Mail made clear its frustration: “Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” But while the Times called Boris Johnson “right”, the Sun is expected to take a far tougher line on a man the paper has already outed, along with Michael Gove, as being on the side of in.
  • (9) Britain and France, Europe's two military heavyweights, took the lead on the Libyan intervention in the teeth of outright opposition from Germany and pusillanimity in Washington.
  • (10) Why aren’t these faithless, pusillanimous people retaliating as they should, by surging towards Ukip with cries of revenge against all Muslims?
  • (11) For some, Wapping planted a decisive nail in the coffin of what Andrew Neil, a former Murdoch editor, has described as "all that was wrong with British industry: pusillanimous management, pig-headed unions, crazy restrictive practices, endless strikes and industrial disruption, and archaic technology".
  • (12) But only nine days into his administration, Clinton found himself at a press conference explaining “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, an awkward (and many thought pusillanimous) compromise to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military.
  • (13) The British government – pusillanimous as ever – thinks it is too sensitive a subject for us to ask the US why it is flouting an international agreement.
  • (14) The question then is, is this pusillanimity on his part?
  • (15) The pusillanimity of the remain campaign’s failure to counter these claims was indefensible.
  • (16) Amid so many humanitarian emergencies, it would be callous of Mr Cameron to pursue this nomination and pusillanimous of the secretary general to accept it.
  • (17) Heads should roll," he wrote on his website, "Isn't it really about time we decent, nice, liberal people stopped being so pusillanimously terrified of being thought 'Islamophobic' and stood up for decent, nice, liberal values?"