(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.
Satirical
Definition:
(a.) Of or pertaining to satire; of the nature of satire; as, a satiric style.
(a.) Censorious; severe in language; sarcastic; insulting.
Example Sentences:
(1) After heading for Rome with his long-term partner, Howard Auster, he returned to fiction with a bestselling novel, Julian, based on the life of a late Roman emperor; a political novel, Washington DC, based on his own family; and Myra Breckinridge, a subversive satire that examined contradictions of gender and sexuality with enough comic brio to become a worldwide bestseller.
(2) Comic writing can be a brutal, unforgiving business, yet it can produce great and multi-layered prose, combining comedy, pathos and satire.
(3) A Cairo heart surgeon inspired by the US news programme The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has captivated Egyptian viewers with a new style of satirical TV show poking fun at politicians on air for the first time.
(4) I'd like to say it's all a biting satire of American military practices (I know Busty Cops Go Hawaiian certainly was) but chances are it's just about a bunch of big meanie spiders.
(5) With commendable alacrity, meanwhile, the developers at art-game co-operative KOOPmode have already released a downloadable satire on how Facebook might work in 3D , graced with the irresistible tagline: "Scroll Facebook … with your face".
(6) One particular poem attacked by Liao, he said, is not praising a disgraced party official, but is actually satire.
(7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Some recent statements on gay marriage from Ireland: "This is really a kind of a satire on marriage that is being conducted by the gay lobby.
(8) Some singers and writers are understood to write “in character” – Elvis Costello, for instance, or Randy Newman – because the characters they create are so obviously not themselves, and are either highly exaggerated or satirical creations or, in the case of Randy Newman, a monstrous opposite.
(9) Homegrown talent Facebook Twitter Pinterest There’s not much in the way of English-speaking talent, but Papi Jiang has become China’s biggest internet sensation after her satirical rants on topics of popular culture went viral on Youku (A Chinese version of YouTube) earlier this year.
(10) The satirical animus is what vibrates the molecules.
(11) Vice, folly and humbug – it is the point of satire really.
(12) So yes, it might sound far-fetched, the sort of proposal that lends itself to endless satire from the triumphalist neoliberal right.
(13) Dan Heymann, a reluctant army conscript, wrote the brutally satirical Weeping for His Band Bright Blue .
(14) So we’re eagerly awaiting Mike Bartlett’s darkly satirical verse drama.
(15) But Oliver now seems to have accepted his fate as a satirical news anchor who covers the Trump campaign, wading into the recent phallus-based Trump news in his headlines section on Sunday night.
(16) "But I think, as comics, we need to be braver and address what's happening in the world, and in this country, with satire based on real knowledge of the political situation."
(17) We wear its many dysfunctions as a badge of honour, proudly swapping real-life stories that elsewhere in the world would belong in the realms of sci-fi or satire.
(18) In a related development, on Saturday, I was supposed to host a discussion with Roger Drew, a writer on the political satire The Thick of It , about the 2012 Leveson-inspired Goolding inquiry episode .
(19) Laughing in the face of danger: the state of satire in the Muslim world Read more “The importance of satire is bringing more people to the table.
(20) The game's co-writer Dan Houser has described it as a satire on Los Angeles, and more specifically a modern Hollywood fading into insignificance in an era of outsourced production.