(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.
Sect
Definition:
(n.) A cutting; a scion.
(n.) Those following a particular leader or authority, or attached to a certain opinion; a company or set having a common belief or allegiance distinct from others; in religion, the believers in a particular creed, or upholders of a particular practice; especially, in modern times, a party dissenting from an established church; a denomination; in philosophy, the disciples of a particular master; a school; in society and the state, an order, rank, class, or party.
Example Sentences:
(1) Difficult to see how he could become Iraqi PM for a third term with rival sects and blocs strongly against him.
(2) Waco, Texas, will forever be known for the siege that began in February 1993 when agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided a compound owned by the Branch Davidian religious sect to investigate allegations of weapons hoarding.
(3) Iraq's beleaguered prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, no longer has the authority to unite the country's disparate sects.
(4) The retreat of government forces had left tens of thousands exposed to the savagery of Isis, especially those from the country's minorities, including Christians and members of the Yazidi sect.
(5) Members of the Ahmadiyya community, an Islamic sect, have faced persecution in other areas of Britain from some other Muslims who do not recognise them as fellow Muslims but Ahmedi said they had not had the same experience in Crawley – proof that it was a tolerant community.
(6) What always struck me even then as slightly odd was that, regardless of the political complexion of a sect, the behavioural patterns of its leaders were not so different.
(7) At least 100 Boko Haram militants killed by Cameroon army Read more Ibrahim Musa, a spokesman for the Shia Islamic Movement in Nigeria, said soldiers on Monday carried away about 200 bodies from around the home of the sect’s leader Ibraheem Zakzaky, who was himself badly wounded and whose whereabouts have not been disclosed by the authorities.
(8) In 1993, at the Branch Davidian religious compound outside Waco, Texas, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms didn’t wait for the sect leader, David Koresh, to leave before attempting to arrest him and got into a gun battle that claimed 10 victims and led to a disastrous 51-day siege culminating in dozens more deaths.
(9) In conclusion it is suggested that medicalization may be conductive to sect development, and that secularization and medicalization are compatible models of social change.
(10) Saudis and their Sunni Arab allies view Houthi fighters – who belong to the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam – as Iranian proxies and have accused Tehran of militarily backing them, a charge Iran vehemently denies.
(11) Coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia have been conducting a bombing campaign to try to force out rebels from the Houthi sect, who overran the country in March, and restore the previous government.
(12) Ms Williams's name will already be familiar to many gay rights campaigners courtesy of a memorable speech on same-sex relationships, in which she applauded Jamaica's criminalisation of what her sect considers a curable aberration, a diagnosis she did not hesitate to apply to Tom Daly.
(13) "In the Shia sect, for instance, the age of custody for boys is two; for girls it is seven," Jabbour says.
(14) In any period, however, there seem to have been marked individual and cultural differences in outlook; some of these differences are still evident today in the survival of belief in demonic possession in pentecostal sects.
(15) This is a party on its way to becoming a multinational libertarian sect, whose preoccupations are no longer those either of much of its electorate or of the business community – wrestling with how genuinely to innovate, invest and motivate workforces in a world of increasingly amoral, ownerless companies so beloved and promoted by the sect.
(16) Personally, I would rather live under a family than a sect."
(17) It was discovered in Hutterites, a reproductively isolated religious sect, and is also present in Australian aborigines and a sample of Chicago residents.
(18) Syria's uprising began with largely peaceful protests and has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting largely Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government, which is dominated by Alawites, a sect of Shia Islam.
(19) This is illustrated by the Schneerson family dynasty, which has led the Lubavich sect of ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jews since its inception in the 18th century.
(20) While the beheading of hostages from the US, Britain and Japan drew condemnation from most religious sects within Islam , the gruesome images of the airman’s murder served as a unifying battlecry for Muslims across the world.