What's the difference between contemptuous and contentious?

Contemptuous


Definition:

  • (a.) Manifesting or expressing contempt or disdain; scornful; haughty; insolent; disdainful.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He was contemptuous of Nelson’s small target strategy even in the early years in opposition, insisting voters always needed to know what a party stood for, and that it should stand for big ideas.
  • (2) Sly, underhanded, contemptuous, mendacious, double-dealing, cheating democracy.
  • (3) He dictates the next rally and when Murray decides to go for another lob, Dimitrov is on to the ruse and swats a contemptuous smash away to seal the first set that flashed by in the blink of an eye!
  • (4) (Of course, she was also perfectly aware of the feminist content, what it said about the disgusted-attracted-contemptuous male gaze, but she preferred the art to ask the questions, discomfit, not preach.)
  • (5) Thatcher was contemptuous of "the centre ground" and withering about consensus politics, holding it to be responsible for Britain's postwar decline and believing it to be a recipe for getting nothing done.
  • (6) It held its first national congress in Algiers, and although it was contemptuous of existing political organisations, Poujade made his own political party, Union et Fraternité Française.
  • (7) His enemies argue that he divided Europe by launching an illegal war; he kept the UK out of the eurozone and the Schengen agreement ; he is contemptuous of democracy (surely a qualification?
  • (8) It is rife with secrecy, top-down managerial manipulation, impervious to any outside scrutiny, contemptuous of any questioning, and has embraced extensive surveillance and discriminatory policing of religious and racial minorities.
  • (9) Photograph: AAP In her famous 1913 pamphlet, Round about a pound a week , Maud Pember Reeves wrote contemptuously about “the gospel of porridge” – the idea, still common among the wealthy, that the destitute wouldn’t be so wretched if only they invested their money wisely.
  • (10) Norte Energia officials are privately contemptuous.
  • (11) The voices (which by this time had multiplied and become much more aggressive) were witheringly contemptuous about this: "You can't even SPELL schizophrenia," one of them said, "So what the hell are you going to do about having it?!"
  • (12) Facebook Twitter Pinterest The words returned to haunt Renzi for weeks afterwards, in the fitting form, for this most Twitter-friendly of premiers, of contemptuous hashtags and YouTube satire.
  • (13) Judge Alistair McCreath said: "When a defendant makes a considered decision to abscond as you did he or she has shown a contemptuous disregard for that important obligation and that in itself matters."
  • (14) "If it is false, it is libellous; if it is true, it is contemptuous," he added.
  • (15) He was contemptuous of the way a powerful lobby had manipulated Jewish American opinion, although this compared with the way "the Greek, Armenian, Ukrainian and Irish diasporas have all played an unhealthy role in perpetuating ethnic exclusivism and nationalist prejudice in the countries of their forebears".
  • (16) But a decade ago, executive leadership fell into the hands of people obsessed with "get big quick" and openly contemptuous of co-operative values.
  • (17) The campaign, according to Graham, ignored focus group research that showed people were contemptuous of the idea that electoral reform would prevent corruption.
  • (18) "He doesn't do anything that presidents do, he doesn't worry about any of the things the presidents do, but he has the White House, he has enormous power, and he'll go down in history as the president – and I suspect that he's pretty contemptuous of the rest of us."
  • (19) Delivering the prestigious Hugh Cudlipp lecture, Dacre harangued what he dubbed the "subsidariat" of newspapers - in which he included the Times and the Guardian - which do not turn a profit and are "consumed by the kind of political correctness that is patronisingly contemptuous of what it describes as ordinary people".
  • (20) Whatever I asked him about, he was fantastically hostile and contemptuous.

Contentious


Definition:

  • (a.) Fond of contention; given to angry debate; provoking dispute or contention; quarrelsome.
  • (a.) Relating to contention or strife; involving or characterized by contention.
  • (a.) Contested; litigated; litigious; having power to decide controversy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Republicans remain wary of a contentious debate on the divisive issue, which could anger their core voters and undercut potential electoral gains in the November elections when control of Congress will be at stake.
  • (2) How to administer the fund is another contentious area.
  • (3) They make a big deal when it happens, and then they forget.” The use of sarin has been highly contentious throughout the Syrian war.
  • (4) The election in the capital of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation has been deeply contentious.
  • (5) I can only say, we want to do more in terms of research and we obviously want to support our scientists.” NCRIS is not specifically mentioned in the contentious higher education bill that the Senate will debate next week.
  • (6) I’ve never had a black person or a brown person ever say anything bad about me.” Then he proceeded to make fresh contentious comments, first by repeating the comparison between slavery and welfare dependence: “Receiving welfare and housing – is that a sense of slavery when you get caught up in that and can’t get out of it for generations?
  • (7) Garcia, who sought to interview all 22 executive committee members who made the contentious decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar but found some who are no longer in football beyond his reach, delivered his report this month.
  • (8) The Jedwabne massacre and Kaminski's line that "Jews should say sorry for killing Poles" during the second world war is by far the most important of the many contentious issues on this man.
  • (9) Samuel Wurzelbacher, who became famous during the 2008 election as “Joe the Plumber” after he had a heated discussion with Obama on the campaign trail, was championed by presidential nominee John McCain but later made contentious remarks such as a call to “put a damn fence on the border going to Mexico and start shooting”.
  • (10) Southern said on Tuesday it would reinstate travel passes for staff and allow them to swap shifts, reversing two contentious moves following strike action.
  • (11) Meanwhile, MPs in Athens approved the contentious reforms and austerity package demanded by its creditors amid angry scenes in parliament and violent clashes on the streets on Wednesday.
  • (12) Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, has resigned, formally setting off what will be a contentious election to replace him.
  • (13) There is a growing conviction that medical technologies are major contributors to escalating costs, and regulating them is generally viewed as the least contentious way to control expenses in the 1980's.
  • (14) The contentious position is set to be waved into the final EU negotiating position by consensus.
  • (15) But this later proved contentious because the reserve appeared to preclude any resettlement of the atolls by islanders whose families had been evicted in 1965 to make way for a giant US air force base.
  • (16) The treasurer Joe Hockey has hinted the government might be prepared to shift ground on its insistence that a crucial $150m research funding extension hinges on the passage of contentious legislation to deregulate university fees.
  • (17) Business rates have long been a contentious issue among retailers, who argue the system penalises high street premises and unfairly benefits online retailers.
  • (18) Osborne also envisages “demonstrating the concept” of safe fracking by “focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations” including “public sector land (particularly MOD owned)”.
  • (19) Trump is an isolationist so the Chinese are going to see that as an opportunity to keep strengthening their position and their role in the region.” Delury said Trump was also likely to ditch the highly contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which under Obama had been “a centrepiece of an American resurgence of its role in Asia”.
  • (20) Political distortion And in all of this, Brooks consistently injected a highly contentious political ideology into the arteries of public debate, a toxic cocktail of crude populism and intellectual confusion.