(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.
Sardonic
Definition:
(a.) Forced; unnatural; insincere; hence, derisive, mocking, malignant, or bitterly sarcastic; -- applied only to a laugh, smile, or some facial semblance of gayety.
(a.) Of, pertaining to, or resembling, a kind of linen made at Colchis.
Example Sentences:
(1) It’s a sardonic but good-natured account of being non-white in modern Australia.
(2) Harrison Ford (Han Solo) had had a small part in George Lucas's American Grafitti, but was working as a carpenter when he was cast as the sardonic space smuggler, and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) had appeared briefly in the 1975 Warren Beatty comedy Shampoo.
(3) In the digital era, Hill and his team can sample and sardonically alter material in the week it is transmitted.
(4) People talk the same way about Angela Chase, the sardonic and sentimental heroine of My So-Called Life , the teen TV series that began Danes's career in 1994.
(5) The king sardonically replies that it would in fact make people merely acquire the appearance of wisdom, and that it would make them forgetful of how to remember.
(6) Entertainment Weekly later reported that sardonic space smuggler Solo and bounty hunter Fett would also get their own films, and there have also been hints that Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine could return.
(7) Han definitely shoots first (and asks questions later) Lucas and fans have debated for decades whether the sardonic space scoundrel was originally intended to shoot bounty hunter Greedo only after the alien fired his blaster first in the Mos Eisley Cantina in 1977’s saga opener A New Hope, but Abrams clearly has no such qualms about showing the elder Solo as a quick-on-the-draw kind of guy.
(8) The Han Solo film will reportedly portray a younger version of the sardonic space smuggler, and will be set in the period between 2005 prequel movie Revenge of the Sith and the film that introduced the character, 1977's Star Wars .
(9) The Daily Mail wondered sardonically last week what they talked about over breakfast.
(10) I don’t know where they will find a place for the replay, maybe in a morning when we play in an afternoon,” said the sardonic Liverpool manager following his team’s ninth game in 29 days.
(11) The Oscar-winning Welsh actor has joined a cast that already includes Toby Jones and Bill Nighy in the lead roles of pompous Captain Mainwaring and his sardonic second-in-command Sergeant Wilson, the roles made famous by Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier in Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s original TV show.
(12) 3.26pm GMT A rather sardonic take on Chris Smith’s announcement that the dredging of the Somerset levels should start.
(13) One sardonic comment on Twitter summed up the widespread reaction: " There are no black men in Plymouth ," observed Chris Terry.
(14) Sardonic recoil against them (as in Shem's novel House of God) by residents--a professionally sanctioned response, deflecting what might otherwise be unendurable demands on their varied quotas of pity.
(15) "Well," a sudden, sardonic smile, "it is, but with enormous amounts of irony.
(16) A younger version of Solo will instead return in a new spin-off , tipped to appear in 2018, with Dave Franco, Logan Lerman and Scott Eastwood reportedly among the frontrunners to play the sardonic space scoundrel.
(17) While Jimmy Kimmel’s success is built on his sardonic wit, Corden doesn’t seem to have a cynical bone in his body.
(18) Felipe Gonzalez, the former Spanish social democratic prime minister, remarked sardonically the other day that when he was a lad Franco claimed his was the Third Way between capitalism and communism(4).
(19) Harrison Ford has confirmed for the first time that he expects to return as sardonic space smuggler Han Solo in Disney's forthcoming new Star Wars film.
(20) Mark of Cain, that is,” he said, in his aggressively sardonic Stirling-accented way.