What's the difference between craven and pusillanimous?

Craven


Definition:

  • (a.) Cowardly; fainthearted; spiritless.
  • (n.) A recreant; a coward; a weak-hearted, spiritless fellow. See Recreant, n.
  • (v. t.) To make recreant, weak, spiritless, or cowardly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The vice chancellor of the Catholic University, Greg Craven, wrote in the Australian that stripping either dual or sole nationals of citizenship via a ministerial decision “would be irredeemably unconstitutional.
  • (2) In any case, the Brits are a notoriously lily-livered shower when it comes to workplace politics, too craven to strike – [note to non-British readers: we're a sorry servile bunch, we don't like it up us] - and as a result, poor John's failed coup has led to him becoming the most reviled union leader in British history, ahead of the excellent Bob Crow, the much misunderstood Arthur Scargill, and Gary Neville.
  • (3) Ankle ligament damage has already denied Stockdale his first involvement with the national side – the Fulham goalkeeper fears he could be absent for up to two months having only just broken into the first team at Craven Cottage – and allowed Carson a return to the fold.
  • (4) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
  • (5) "They falsely suggested that Mr Watkins took this craven stance to the point of refusing to condemn death threats which Mr Woolas claimed had been made against him because he was 'in the pay' of a rich Arab sheikh," she said.
  • (6) I think the real reason was that the administration did not want to embarrass the Saudis – and for the US news media to be complicit in that is craven."
  • (7) To examine this issue, mutations that disrupt the addition of amino acids by ribosome frameshifting were analyzed for their effects on particle assembly and Gag processing in a mammalian expression system (J. W. Wills, R. C. Craven, and J.
  • (8) He is near embarrassed by the craven nature of it, despite the fact that he quit two shows – Popworld (2001–2006) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks (2006–2009) – before we could get bored with him, going off to do bigger and more ambitious things each time.
  • (9) Sir Philip Craven, who has been president of the Bonn-based IPC since 1991, said it was time to re-examine the language used to describe Paralympians.
  • (10) The documents imply that even craven European leaders believe the US demands go too far.
  • (11) He might break with New Labour’s craven appeasement of the industrial lobbies and log-rollers.
  • (12) The doping culture that is polluting Russian sport stems from the Russian government and has now been uncovered in not one but two independent reports commissioned by the Wada.” Craven is, of course, right to apportion blame where it is due – with the Russian state.
  • (13) If that happens, only the most craven board back in New York would stand up and salute the wizard of Oz.
  • (14) The Welshman had criticised Fulham for a "lack of ambition" after leaving Craven Cottage in 2011 but the same cannot be said of Stoke who turned on the style in another impressive performance.
  • (15) I come from sport," said Craven, who represented Great Britain at wheelchair basketball at five Paralympics between 1972 and 1988.
  • (16) It’s not so much investing Wong with superhero status as asking why a bunch of teenagers and twentysomethings have been willing to confront the might of China, at considerable cost, while governments are craven.
  • (17) "Unbeknown to us Fulham were in the middle of a financial crisis and in serious peril of merging with QPR, with Craven Cottage to be sold for residential development, all courtesy of the club chairman (and, quite conveniently, property developer) David Bulstrode.
  • (18) Craven called for use of the word in connection with the Paralympics, which begins on Wednesday with an opening ceremony titled The Enlightenment, to be phased out.
  • (19) As ever, he will be razor sharp, ready to dart and pounce at just the right time, come kick-off against Fulham at Craven Cottageon Saturday, hoping for another goal to add to his wall chart.
  • (20) I don’t think that the only way you can have a good and constructive relationship with China is by behaving in that sort of craven way.” Patten, who is now chancellor of the University of Oxford, said Britain’s “increasing disinclination” to inject principles into its foreign policy was enabling the ever-more repressive and aggressive policies coming out of Beijing.

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?"