(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.
Misanthrope
Definition:
(n.) A hater of mankind; a misanthropist.
Example Sentences:
(1) Maybe there was a wish to go for these stronger story formulations, more extreme situations to try to get the energy up to comfortably blow the lid off.” Miller pointed out to Franzen that he has developed something of a reputation as a misanthrope.
(2) This misanthropic masterpiece says it all for them.
(3) Williams's Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, with its all-black cast, won best revival, beating strong competition that included The Misanthrope and A View From the Bridge.
(4) I am not a misanthrope (or not entirely) but I like my experience of nature to be unmediated by the presence of other members of my species, and so I stay away from the venues where the tourists gather en masse.
(5) Jonathan Franzen on his misanthropic reputation: 'We live in a world of cant' Read more While the novelist blamed himself for the incident, he admitted he also blamed Winfrey.
(6) The West End debut of Keira Knightley will irresistibly get all the headlines and shift a lot of the tickets, though the rest of the cast of The Misanthrope – including Damian Lewis, Dominic Rowan and Tara Fitzgerald – are not exactly duffers.
(7) "I was busy being misanthropic and miserable, as most 13-year-olds are.
(8) Scalia was, as usual, the episode's garish, garrulous villain, the kind of lusty misanthrope the word "harrumph" erupts from.
(9) People think I'm crabby having seen the new movie, (1) but I'm not this misanthrope who sits in a dark room, smoking, writing comments under YouTube clips.
(10) They leave the zoo, and close the door and we are left ... " He trails off, the professional churl and pretend misanthrope.
(11) Let's make Alceste fall in love with Jennifer, an American film star, whose shameless manipulation of her powerful friends, strategic sexual provocation and delight in malicious chatter makes her, like The Misanthrope's Célimène, represent everything he most hates.
(12) Her quiet lifestyle, gamine looks and infrequent personal appearances have fuelled her reputation as a misanthropic genius.
(13) To critics who consider Rand's philosophy that " of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed ", her posthumous success is alarming.
(14) Known for having starred as child actors in the communist-era film The Two Who Stole the Moon, theirs was a symbiotic political dynamic, with the more softly spoken and personable Lech softening the image of the vitriolic and misanthropic Jarosław.
(15) Amazing – but at the same time worrying: how can his play The Misanthrope have any purchase on a world of such egalitarian transparency?
(16) I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem.
(17) This isn't easy, for Travers is a misanthrope, highly strung and fiercely protective of her books.
(18) I've found that the songs that come out of nastier, more misanthropic places are better.
(19) "I have heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that without the Bible as a moral compass people would show no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem.
(20) When I put it to him that, like Brooker, there's a liberal heart beating behind the misanthropic exterior (he's fiercely pro-choice and pro-drugs), he disagrees.