(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.
Realist
Definition:
(n.) One who believes in realism; esp., one who maintains that generals, or the terms used to denote the genera and species of things, represent real existences, and are not mere names, as maintained by the nominalists.
(n.) An artist or writer who aims at realism in his work. See Realism, 2.
Example Sentences:
(1) A full-scale war is unlikely but there is clear concern in Seoul about the more realistic threat of a small-scale attack on the South Korean military or a group of islands near the countries' disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea.
(2) But she says she is totally convinced that, as a public broadcaster, RAI has an ethical responsibility to start showing women in a more realistic light.
(3) You can’t prevent it,” he says, calling himself a realist.
(4) "If I hadn't scored that goal, I might still have ended up playing in Italy [Platt went on to play for Bari, Juventus and Sampdoria] but, realistically, I'm sure it was the catalyst.
(5) Given his background, Boyle says, growing up in a council house near Bury, with his two sisters (one a twin) and his strict and hard-working parents (his mum worked as a dinner lady at his school), he should by rights have been a gritty social realist, but that tradition never appealed to him.
(6) The ordered aspect of the genetic code table makes this result a plausible starting point for studies of the origin and evolution of the genetic code: these could include, besides a more refined optimization principle at the logical level, some effects more directly related to the physico-chemical context, and the construction of realistic models incorporating both aspects.
(7) A realistic interpretation of neurophysiologic data on the neostriatum must take into account all cell types instead of the current view of considering it as a pool of interneurons with few output cells.
(8) However, he told the BBC the 2014 target was a realistic aim.
(9) "I know fans will be disappointed but I think they are also realistic.
(10) Finally, an integrated control of Chagas Disease must emphasise complementary activities such as housing improvement and the active control of blood banks to eliminate transfusional transmission, besides the development of a realistic medical care system.
(11) Concluding that he didn't really want a career as a gritty Northern Irish realist, Harvey decided to train as a teacher.
(12) The possibility of pulmonary edema from fluid overload in nonhypovolemic patients, and reluctance of field personnel to infuse fluid at the rates necessary to produce benefit raise further questions about realistic benefit of IV's in all but the most rural systems.
(13) Epidemiological effects of lung cancer screening have not yet been confirmed, but so many lung cancer cases have been detected and treated, that a realistic approach for the improvement of screening programs was discussed.
(14) In asthmatic patients with aspirin sensitivity, who undergo ASA desensitization, continuous treatment with ASA or NSAIDs is realistic.
(15) Evaluations of the summer program have revealed that the students have an increased academic self-concept, a more realistic view of the requirements to become a health professional, and an enhanced awareness of the health care environment.
(16) A way must be found to experiment with various discretionary approaches that would strike a realistic balance among competing interests.
(17) She believes her explorations – of their vanities, their blindnesses, their cruelties, of the brief moments in which they attain goodness, or glimpse a kind of realistic, unselfish love – to be of urgent importance.
(18) I think we can realistically put back what we had 25 or 30 years ago.” However, the engineering projects are prohibitively expensive.
(19) Unemployment stands at a massive 36.7% using the most realistic definition, he noted in a June 2013 speech, with the proportion of those out of work for more than a year at 68%.
(20) It offers a more clinically realistic setting than models based on costs alone.