(n.) One of a sect or school of philosophers founded by Antisthenes, and of whom Diogenes was a disciple. The first Cynics were noted for austere lives and their scorn for social customs and current philosophical opinions. Hence the term Cynic symbolized, in the popular judgment, moroseness, and contempt for the views of others.
(n.) One who holds views resembling those of the Cynics; a snarler; a misanthrope; particularly, a person who believes that human conduct is directed, either consciously or unconsciously, wholly by self-interest or self-indulgence, and that appearances to the contrary are superficial and untrustworthy.
Example Sentences:
(1) Still, cynics might say they can identify at least one reason it all might fail: namely form.
(2) But he won’t call.” Allardyce is also cynical about an offer from Swansea to compensate around 300 Sunderland fans who had booked trips to Wales before the date change.
(3) And it was here, several years later, that I came looking for an answer to a question which has baffled many cynical film critics: how did a low-key prison drama, which was considered a box-office flop on its initial release, become one of the most popular movies of all time?
(4) I have not met someone as cynical as Museveni,” Besigye told a rally in eastern Uganda in January.
(5) The aim of this study was to determine how individual differences in cynical hostility and defensiveness interacted with situational demands to affect cardiovascular responses in a natural setting.
(6) It goes on: "In a reality of ongoing occupation, of solid cynicism and meanness, each and every one of us bears the moral obligation to try to relieve the suffering, do something to bend back the occupation's giant, cruel hand."
(7) The present study extended this previous research by evaluating urinary cortisol excretion during routine daily activities in a sample of high and low cynically hostile young men.
(8) If Deng is a 21st-century Becky Sharp, we should recall that for all her cynicism, Thackeray's heroine also possessed an indomitable spirit.
(9) Oil companies are sponsoring the arts around the world on an “epidemic” scale as a cynical PR strategy to improve their reputation, a new book argues.
(10) The British ambassador to Ukraine , Simon Smith, called Yanukovych's decision "an egregious piece of cynicism".
(11) Cynics will tell you Camra’s membership know all about identity crises – once the rebels of the 1970s, they’re now mostly older dads and grandads – purists upholding Camra’s “cask only” creed as sacred.
(12) The swift action of the US in withdrawing funding is likely to increase cynicism among Palestinians about the credibility of the US as a mediator between them and the Israelis.
(13) Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat campaign manager, accused Cameron of using the Greens to duck TV debates, adding: “Not since the photos of Cameron driving huskies have green issues been so cynically harnessed to Tory interest.” The broadcasters have proposed three one-hour TV debates, the first involving the Ukip, Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative leaders, the second Lib Dem, Labour and Tory.
(14) Police officers resigned and politicians were embarrassed as the scandal erupted, but Scotland Yard – with dazzling cynicism – has reacted by trying to silence the kind of police whistleblowers who helped to expose the failures of their leaders; and ambitious politicians continue to dine with Rupert Murdoch.
(15) I'm always initially very cynical: who are these people, they look ridiculous.'
(16) To somehow use the upcoming 2012 Olympics as a reason to do this is, in my opinion, unforgivably cynical.
(17) Serving on the government's Renewables Advisory Board from 2003 to 2006, I witnessed what cynics could easily have mistaken for a deliberate campaign of delay, obfuscation, and the parking, if not torpedoing, of good ideas coming from industry members of the board."
(18) Swansea, for whom Jefferson Montero was outstanding, levelled when Gylfi Sigurdsson curled a sublime 25-yard free-kick into the top corner, after Kieran Gibbs had cynically brought down Modou Barrow, the Swansea substitute.
(19) Cynics would say it has taken the scientific community a long time to achieve very little progress in our understanding of HIV-mediated CNS damage.
(20) The aid cynics attacking the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on development assistance should take note.
Detractor
Definition:
Example Sentences:
(1) We simply do whatever nature needs and will work with anyone that wants to help wildlife.” His views might come as a surprise to some of the RSPB’s 1.1 million members, who would have been persuaded by its original pledge “to discourage the wanton destruction of birds”; they would equally have been a surprise to the RSPB’s detractors in the shooting world.
(2) Screening has many detractors, especially in the treatment camp.
(3) Behaving like the oldest kid on the block is just one of the things that Larry Clark's detractors hold against him.
(4) Tony Abbott has heard the message on the need to change his leadership style, a senior minister has said, warning the prime minister’s detractors against moving an “amateur-hour” spill motion next week.
(5) Barack Obama and secretary of state John Kerry have warned detractors that they would be unable to reimpose a multinational trade embargo if congress rejects the plans .
(6) His many detractors said that Peres simply had no choice.
(7) Culture secretary Sajid Javid has said that ticket touts are “classic entrepreneurs” and their detractors are the “chattering middle classes and champagne socialists, who have no interest in helping the common working man earn a decent living by acting as a middleman”.
(8) Fortunately for his detractors, who bristle at his brash TV persona and penchant for bullying guests, Shimada conceded his TV career was at an end: "From tomorrow I will become just another regular person.
(9) The eminent historian Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University and a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, has jumped to Gove's defence, attacking the "pomposity" of the curriculum's detractors.
(10) After suggesting that the voting for Forbes had been fixed by "a small group of detractors" casting multiple votes, he continued: "Glenfiddich's choice of Michael Forbes, as Top Scot, will go down as one of the great jokes ever played on the Scottish people and is a terrible embarrassment to Scotland."
(11) He was protected by the media, his detractors complained, but protection was certainly not offered from the club.
(12) His detractors, many in his own party, say he will turn Britain’s main opposition party into a political pressure group at best , with no hope of regaining office.
(13) While there is good scientific evidence that meditating twice a day can reduce stress and lower blood pressure, the maharishi's detractors say that his claims that it can also cure cancer and prolong lifespans are unproven.
(14) The eccentric, gonzo-ish path that Vice has chosen to pursue instead has itself come in for sharp criticism from detractors among those he belittles as football-chasers.
(15) The company was employed in September 2015 by one of Trump’s Republican detractors to look into his dealings.
(16) The Pythons were silly and surreal, and any style of humour so quirkily individual that it spawns its own adjective will have its detractors.
(17) While Osborne claimed "access to higher education is a basic tenet of economic success in the global race", his detractors countered that the system would collapse under the weight of its own ambition.
(18) John Smith As the chief executive of BBC Worldwide, he is frequently accused of behaving too commercially by the BBC's detractors.
(19) Facing threats of boycotts and cancellations across a range of industries Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona, vetoed a bill sponsored by fellow Republicans that detractors said would have facilitated discrimination against gays in the name of defending religious freedom.
(20) Where fans see a great artist drawn to extremes of ecstasy and anguish, detractors see an old-fashioned misogynist sporting a voguish arthouse cap.