(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.
Sceptic
Definition:
() Alt. of Scepticism
Example Sentences:
(1) Occasional vomits occur postoperatively in over half of patients but we are sceptical of the value of graded postoperative feeding regimens.
(2) It ended with a withering putdown: “I’m leaving Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than I was before ,” Juncker told his host.
(3) David Rothkopf, writing in Foreign Policy, is similarly sceptical. "
(4) A government-commissioned review into the RET, headed by the businessman and climate change sceptic Dick Warburton, concluded that while it has largely achieved its aims and helped create jobs in clean energy, it should be either wound back or cut off entirely.
(5) But she has repeatedly said she doesn't want the job and her hardline attitude to human rights abuses in her current job as secretary of state is said to have made the Chinese sceptical about her candidacy.
(6) My scepticism has not vanished overnight and I cannot help but still be haunted by certain fears.
(7) We had a brief conversation and I said to him he was acting from high honour here, and I said how sorry I was this wasn’t happening in three or four years time..because Barry is a man of honour..and I think he is a very capable premier and I think he has been missed.” Asked whether he had ever met Nick di Girolamo , the prime minister said both he and Mr di Girolamo attended a lot of functions, and “I don’t for a moment say I have never met him but I don’t recall it.” But former federal Liberal MP Ross Cameron sounded much more sceptical about O’Farrell’s memory lapse when speaking to Sky News.
(8) And despite the initial scepticism, now completely gone says Henry, DCA's transparency and accountability systems and mechanisms are now "some of the most convincing tools to fundraising, credibility and brand recognition" and is used by face-to-face fundraisers, volunteers and PR to promote the organisation.
(9) Kerry warned a sceptical and sometimes raucous panel that failing to strike Syria would embolden al-Qaida and raise to 100% the chances that Assad would use chemical weapons again.
(10) Anette Oien, too, was "deeply sceptical" to start with.
(11) Few of us will have reliable memories from before three or four years of age, and recollections from before that time need to be treated with scepticism.
(12) His initial exposure to leftist ideas was via the underground hippy press which provided him "with a certain amount of scepticism".
(13) He thinks Obama himself is sceptical of the current surge; in fact he thinks many of the politicians who back it are only really doing so because they want a fast exit from Afghanistan.
(14) Sceptics said the US protections for journalists would make such a prosecution difficult and also cited pragmatic issues, such as the difficulty of extraditing Assange, an Australian.
(15) Sceptics have queried whether such vast sums are realistic for an unstable nation that is battling terror groups and has struggled to attract significant foreign investment.
(16) But Clive Cowdery, who founded the company as Resolution Group in 2009, is understood to have been sceptical about such a go-it-alone strategy and preferred a sale on the right terms.
(17) Record numbers of shoppers hit the stores this weekend for the Thanksgiving Day sales but retail experts are sceptical that the trend can continue into a bumper Monday for online retailers.
(18) The middle term attracts the most scepticism, based on the presumption that just because your field isn't professionally accredited, you do not know anything and you can't process information.
(19) Smith, a climate change sceptic who has also subpoenaed government scientists’ communications, has accused the attorney generals of a political witch-hunt and for causing a “chilling impact on scientific research and development”.
(20) Glitzy online lectures, or fancy learning technologies, are difficult to reconcile with this fundamental scepticism.