What's the difference between contemptuous and dismissive?

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.

Dismissive


Definition:

  • (a.) Giving dismission.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In this book, he dismisses Freud's idea of penis envy - "Freud got it spectacularly wrong" - and said "women don't envy the penis.
  • (2) Earlier this month, Khamenei insisted that all sanctions be lifted immediately on a deal being reached, a condition that the US State Department dismissed.
  • (3) Whenever you are ill and a medicine is prescribed for you and you take the medicine until balance is achieved in you and then you put that medicine down.” Farrakhan does not dismiss the doctrine of the past, but believes it is no longer appropriate for the present.
  • (4) But employers who have followed a fair procedure may have the right to discipline or finally dismiss any smoker who refuses to accept the new rules.
  • (5) Similarly, while those in the City continue to adopt a Millwall FC-style attitude of "no one likes us, we don't care", there is no incentive for them to heed the advice and demands of the public, who those in the Square Mile prefer to dismiss as intemperate ignoramuses.
  • (6) They also dismiss those who suggest that the current record-low interest rates mean countries could safely stimulate growth by raising their borrowing levels higher: Economists simply have little idea how long it will be until rates begin to rise.
  • (7) The venture capitalist argued in his report, commissioned by the Downing Street policy guru Steve Hilton, in favour of "compensated no fault-dismissal" for small businesses.
  • (8) They have not remotely done this so far, largely from fear of domestic political consequences that cannot be simply dismissed.
  • (9) The prime minister sent back a letter dismissing his allegations.
  • (10) Francis dismissed the suggestion that changing the fine defaulting policy would significantly reduce the prisoner population, saying defaulters made up less than 0.4% of the total prison population, both male and female.
  • (11) But the rest of Israeli society has its own reasons to dismiss Bibi.
  • (12) His employer, Billund city council, has denied that obesity was among the reasons for Kaltoft’s dismissal.
  • (13) Activists, who claim they are the enemies of patriarchy, dismiss allegations of sexual abuse as a CIA conspiracy.
  • (14) Jeremain Lens, signed from Dynamo Kyiv, was fortunate to escape dismissal for a second yellow card, while Yann M’Vila, on loan from Rubin Kazan, followed his headbutt in the reserves by raising arms to Graham Dorrans during an unpunished, but unwise, bout of push ’n’ shove.
  • (15) Facebook Twitter Pinterest May dismisses reports of frosty dinner with EU chief as ‘Brussels gossip’ The EU delegation are said to have wondered whether Davis might still be in his post following the general election.
  • (16) The difficulty has been increased with the recent Supreme Court decision which it ruled the Alien Tort Claims Act does not apply outside of the country and dismissed a case against Royal Dutch Shell.
  • (17) The dismissals were prompted by their participation in a racist orgy during what was supposed to be a goodwill trip to the homeland of the club’s billionaire owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
  • (18) Another senior member of Abdullah's team dismissed the audit as a sham.
  • (19) We can confirm that Oscar Pistorius’s leave to appeal has been denied … The court dismissed the application for leave to appeal because there are are no prospects of success,” Luvuyo Mfaku, spokesperson of the National Prosecuting Authority, told reporters.
  • (20) When physicians dismiss illness because ascertainable "disease" is absent, they fail to meet their socially assigned responsibility.