(a.) Having the qualities of a surly dog; snarling; captious; currish.
(a.) Pertaining to the Dog Star; as, the cynic, or Sothic, year; cynic cycle.
(a.) Belonging to the sect of philosophers called cynics; having the qualities of a cynic; pertaining to, or resembling, the doctrines of the cynics.
(a.) Given to sneering at rectitude and the conduct of life by moral principles; disbelieving in the reality of any human purposes which are not suggested or directed by self-interest or self-indulgence; as, a cynical man who scoffs at pretensions of integrity; characterized by such opinions; as, cynical views of human nature.
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.
Irreverent
Definition:
(a.) Not reverent; showing a want of reverence; expressive of a want of veneration; as, an irreverent babbler; an irreverent jest.
Example Sentences:
(1) This country has had a free press for the last 300 years, that has been irreverent and rude as my website is and holding public officials to account.
(2) Animal Practice is a Universal Television production based on an irreverent New York veterinarian, played by Justin Kirk of Weeds and Angels in America.
(3) There has been much pointing-and-chortling of late at the Daily Mail's embarrassing failure to stoke national outrage over a mildly irreverent comment about the Queen's sex life blurted out by Jack Whitehall on a festive panel show.
(4) One irreverent Australian columnist has suggested that the "Lizard of Oz" may now be more fitting, given that the Aboriginal meaning for Kadina, the country town north of Adelaide where Crosby grew up, is "Lizard Plain".
(5) He showed an irreverence for the lives of the great composers that sometimes came in for criticism.
(6) Ian Hislop, the long-serving editor, had a suitably topical and irreverent take on the vicissitudes of the magazine's circulation.
(7) The required skill of comedians-turned-presenters is to seem irreverent while rocking no boats.
(8) In our own time, Brooke has become the haunting symbol of a doomed generation, flitting across the pages of novels by Alan Hollinghurst and AS Byatt like a volatile and irreverent Peter Pan.
(9) Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman described Entwistle as "clever, erudite, a man, critically, who reads books, a man with a sense of humour and a great degree of irreverence, not least about the BBC.
(10) He could often be seen eating spicy lamb chops at his favourite curry houses, flattering local businessmen and speaking irreverently about parliamentary colleagues.
(11) He achieved a succession of scoops, and was largely responsible for training up a generation of gifted young journalists, notably the irreverent gossip columnist, Nigel Dempster ...
(12) But, unlike the supine press so common abroad, they still have the irreverent vigour and diversity of a true political safeguard.
(13) "I love that a country capable of extraordinary pomp and ceremony can still retain a spiky irreverence towards its establishment.
(14) Hall might be a scion of one of Britain's most important theatrical dynasties (his father is Peter, his half-sister Rebecca), but the cocky irreverence of his productions showed he had every intention of making his own mark.
(15) "The culture of protest needs to develop," one of the members of Pussy Riot said last month, and indeed as much as the band represent a form of protest in Russia, they also embody a shift in culture that echoes the DIY culture that flourished in the Seattle and Olympia areas of Washington in the early 90s – fanzines, garage punk bands, a tone of wild irreverence and a wish to question tradition.
(16) Jordan’s al-Hudoud, a bundle of irreverent online fun, recently ran a delightful story about the arrest of Father Christmas and the confiscation of presents he was distributing.
(17) Because they seemed to represent the best of journalistic virtues – courage, campaigning, toughness, compassion, humour, irreverence; a serious engagement with serious things; a sense of fairness; an eye for injustice; a passion for explaining; knowing how to achieve impact; a connection with readers.
(18) Many Muscovites were happy enough to see a tough response to the band's irreverent act of rebellion, which was aimed at President Vladimir Putin .
(19) I mean merely to josh, not to be blatantly irreverent, for who would seriously argue that Roth's career is not worthy of celebration?
(20) Catch-22 was an irreverent, savage and cruel satire.