(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.
Virtue
Definition:
(n.) Manly strength or courage; bravery; daring; spirit; valor.
(n.) Active quality or power; capacity or power adequate to the production of a given effect; energy; strength; potency; efficacy; as, the virtue of a medicine.
(n.) Energy or influence operating without contact of the material or sensible substance.
(n.) Specifically, moral excellence; integrity of character; purity of soul; performance of duty.
(n.) A particular moral excellence; as, the virtue of temperance, of charity, etc.
(n.) Specifically: Chastity; purity; especially, the chastity of women; virginity.
(n.) One of the orders of the celestial hierarchy.
Example Sentences:
(1) Enough with Clintonism and its prideful air of professional-class virtue.
(2) Dermatoglyphic alterations in schizophrenic patients are considered in virtue of literature data and the author's own investigations.
(3) Since the enzyme requires a metal ion (Co2+) we suggest that the RNA and heparin are inhibitory by virtue of their capacity to chelate the Co2+.
(4) Given the liberalist context in which we live, this paper argues that an act-oriented ethics is inadequate and that only a virtue-oriented ethics enables us to recognize and resolve the new problems ahead of us in genetic manipulation.
(5) The results indicate that ACTH can alter pain sensitivity and that the effect of corticosteroids on the sensitivity to pain is an indirect one by virtue of their negative feed-back action on the hypothalamic-pituitary system.
(6) This test by virtue of its high sensitivity and the facilities in processing a large number of specimens, can prove to be useful in endemic areas for the recognition of asymptomatic malaria and screening of blood donors.
(7) The fitting element to a Cabrera victory would have been thus: the final round of the 77th Masters fell on the 90th birthday of Roberto De Vicenzo, the great Argentine golfer who missed out on an Augusta play-off by virtue of signing for the wrong score.
(8) The corresponding delta FeCO modes are identified at 574 and 566 cm-1, respectively, by virtue of the zigzag pattern of their isotopic shifts.
(9) All lesions but one were located extradurally, and patients with Stage D2 disease, by virtue of bony metastases, were therefore at greatest risk for development of neurologically compressive disease.
(10) By virtue of the technique, minimal incision surgery lends itself to a greater risk of causing epidermal inclusion cysts.
(11) Tumors of ceruminous gland origin appear to have a distinctive clinical behavior by virtue of their unique anatomical location in the external auditory canal.
(12) Proteases substituted with biotin were targeted via the cationic protein avidin A, which by virtue of its charge has affinity for the glomerular basement membrane.
(13) The study is based on 220 children from 91 families at high- and low-risk for major depression by virtue of the presence or absence of major depression in their parents.
(14) Our findings indicate that DFO has antileukemic properties by virtue of its effects on proliferation and differentiation, and they prompt further experimental and clinical studies with this agent.
(15) He will only be able to satisfy all the expectations if he masters, by virtue of his training and experience, the art of setting up a treatment plan with priorities.
(16) Although it is less selective than D-[3H]aspartate, DL-[3H]AP5 and [3H]NMDA, L-[3H]glutamate remains, by virtue of its high affinity, the ligand of choice for the study of NMDA receptors in preparations where such sites predominate.
(17) We postulated that the contraction by virtue of focal calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) and was stimulated this process together with the processes of diffusion into the cytosol, binding to calmodulin and troponin, sequestration by the SR, and subsequent induction of Ca2+ release from the adjacent SR.
(18) Murdoch had one on his, of course, but because he was facing hostile interrogation he looked (unfairly) as if he were wearing it in self-protection as a symbol of his own virtue.
(19) Second, by virtue of their effects against rigor and spasticity, NMDA antagonists may reduce increased muscle tone and prevent rhabdomyolysis.
(20) Most critical are (a) how hardiness is to be measured; (b) whether hardiness should be treated as a unitary phenomenon or as three separate phenomena associated with commitment, control, and challenge; and (c) whether hardiness has direct effects on health or indirect effects by virtue of buffering the impact of stressful life events.