What's the difference between courteous and ruthless?

Courteous


Definition:

  • (a.) Of courtlike manners; pertaining to, or expressive of, courtesy; characterized by courtesy; civil; obliging; well bred; polite; affable; complaisant.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As a person, she was always kind and courteous and as a leader she was steely and determined.
  • (2) None of the backbench questions where MPs often raise serious problems that tend to be dealt with courteously by the prime minister of the day (although regrettably often neither side can resist point-scoring) ever make it beyond Today in Parliament .
  • (3) Praising the protesters for their conduct during the hearing, he said: "Whilst I recognise that this outcome will be disappointing to the defendants, I wish to pay tribute to all who participated in the hearing for the courteous and helpful way in which they conducted themselves."
  • (4) From the typed letters on Clarence House notepaper underlined in his own hand, to the clever blend of courteousness and implied threat used in his own correspondence and by his righthand man, Sir Michael Peat, the case has revealed in detail how the prince wields his power.
  • (5) Referring to the protesters, he said: "Whilst I recognise that this outcome will be disappointing to the defendants, I wish to pay tribute to all who participated in the hearing for the courteous and helpful way in which they conducted themselves."
  • (6) It is noted that: 1) both GPs and clinics have their value in contraceptive treatment; 2) clinics should be conveniently located and might be set up in buildings which are used for other health purposes at other times; 3) most women work so there should be evening sessions; 4) arrangements should be made which include both an appointments system and emergency visits; 5) reception at the clinic should be courteous and without moral judgements; 6) domiciliary services should be used only as a last resort; and 7) payment of prescription charges is now required, but there might be advantages in changing this to a free service.
  • (7) Half of each sample rated the average driver in their age group and the average driver in the opposite age group as regarded thirty-three attitudes promoting safe driving, twenty courteous safe driving behaviors and eleven discourteous, unsafe driving behaviors.
  • (8) Both companies have pointed out the human error inherent in more than 90% of traffic accidents; Chris Urmson, director of Google’s project, said last year that ultimately the goal is for its cars to be “more courteous and more defensive drivers” than human beings.
  • (9) When Murphy resumed his 100-town tour off Edinburgh’s Princes Street on Tuesday he was energetic and courteous, praising both sides for their patriotism: “No one in this debate is a traitor, no one is a quisling.” The remark was directed at angry, even threatening hecklers ( he posted the evidence on YouTube ) who had called Murphy both and forced him to suspend the tour temporarily.
  • (10) General principles of action include letting patients or relatives have their say, remaining calm, empathic, courteous, objective and sharing information with patients.
  • (11) The one word, "Willie", came to conjure up a decent, slightly slow, endlessly courteous country squire, who liked his food and drink and got on with everyone he dealt with - no mean feat for someone educated at that supremely elitist institution, Winchester.
  • (12) However, Israeli sources described the telephone conversations as friendly and courteous attempts to persuade Kunugi to delay the working group’s decision on its recommendation regarding the IDF until Israel had been allowed to present its case on the issue.
  • (13) But he is courteous, wry, insightful and very much on the left of his party.
  • (14) Low key and courteous, he confirmed there had indeed been such an MI5 file on me and that I had been under regular surveillance.
  • (15) They also want to know that it’s going to be a safe product.” Trump has not completely kept to his new, more courteous script.
  • (16) Laidlaw gently pawed her into position, confirming without doubt the date of the lunch, challenging the strength of her memory until she insisted she was absolutely certain and then, like Hannibal Lecter in a horsehair wig, softly and courteously, he cut out her heart: the incident with Kemp had happened six weeks after the lunch.
  • (17) He is courteous, almost jovial, though not quite endearing.
  • (18) He is courteous and polite, and good fun – not attributes you always associate with people connected with fashion.
  • (19) Abbott promised to reply “swiftly, fully and courteously” to Yudhoyono’s letter, in a statement to parliament on Wednesday night.
  • (20) It is certainly true that, away from the stage, the controversial, much-reviled comedian and club owner Manning, who has died aged 76 following a kidney problem, could be a polite, generous and courteous man, referring when appropriate to people as gay or black, for example, once he was off stage.

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".