What's the difference between dastardly and pusillanimous?

Dastardly


Definition:

  • (a.) Meanly timid; cowardly; base; as, a dastardly outrage.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It blamed "confrontation maniacs" for "[making their] servants of conservative media let loose a whole string of sophism intended to hatch all sorts of dastardly wicked plots and float misinformation".
  • (2) Garak has his own agenda and takes things to a more murderous extreme, forcing Sisko to re-evaluate the dastardly and very un-Starfleet tactics.
  • (3) Meanwhile, the possibility that Mr Juncker might now offer the financial services job to the new British commission nominee, Jonathan Hill, is variously seen as an olive branch, which it manifestly would be, or a dastardly Brussels power grab, which it isn’t.
  • (4) Europe, for all its reputation as some kind of dastardly machine for the promotion of crypto-communism, is really just a hothouse environment in which the promised fruits of neoliberalism are forced into ripening more quickly.
  • (5) That's the dastardly genius of the protocol: it is unrelenting – and effective.
  • (6) His dastardly plot involved cutting Gotham City off from the rest of the world and turning it into an anarchic hellhole.
  • (7) Unlike Black Ops 2, which at least used its drone warfare storyline to question the wisdom of such weaponry in its own comic-book fashion, Ghosts never once suggests that giant city-crushing space spears are a bad idea - at least until those dastardly Hispanic hordes get their hands on them.
  • (8) finale, 70 million Americans were hooked on his signature style of dastardly one-liners and references to anyone of the female sex as "darlin", usually before he gave said "darlin" a good seeing to.
  • (9) As it happens, Edith auditioned for, and won, the part of Rooster, Annie's dastardly kidnapper – her traditionally male kidnapper.
  • (10) One of the appeals of Flynn's writing is how willing she is to make every single person in a novel unsympathetic; dastardly, even.
  • (11) Then, 25 minutes in, those dastardly film-makers engineer a shift: it turns out that the two undergrads they picked to follow are from less privileged backgrounds, outsiders trying to break into a social world that isn't theirs.
  • (12) "Has the statue in your accompanying picture hit on a novel way of ensuring that the much maligned jabulani stops misbehaving in such a dastardly fashion?"
  • (13) On the eve of the killings, he called for action against miners engaged in "dastardly criminal" conduct.
  • (14) But I still admired his quick and accurate decision-making and his skilful feigned attempt at a tackle, if not his dastardly lack of sportsmanship and fair play.” You might just be the only one all right and by admitting that he was “out of position then outpaced” you can see why he could well be City’ undoing this afternoon if a player like Johnson, for example, gets to take him on today.
  • (15) Consider this dastardly request to fix an interest rate that is disappointingly underscored with...a winky face emoticon.
  • (16) By the time Craig had made his way back home, Jason (alright, Dev helped with any detective work that required adult supervision) had assembled all the pieces of Karl's dastardly jigsaw.
  • (17) "It is clear Ramaphosa was directly involved by advising what was to be done to address these 'dastardly criminal actions', which he says must be characterised as such and dealt with effectively."
  • (18) "Yer all orphans and bastards," snarls dastardly foreman Charlie Crout (Craig Parkinson) as oppressed urchins gulp and clench their bumcheeks.
  • (19) A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties.
  • (20) In contrast with Breaking Bad's murderous drug kingpin and Mad Men's philandering ad executive, Woodhull is a good man who, in 1778, becomes a spy in order to help George Washington defeat the dastardly British redcoats.

Pusillanimous


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind; of weak spirit; mean-spirited; spiritless; cowardly; -- said of persons, as, a pussillanimous prince.
  • (a.) Evincing, or characterized by, weakness of mind, and want of courage; feeble; as, pusillanimous counsels.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is a pusillanimous, jargon-ridden, self-perpetuating proof of Parkinson's law .
  • (2) Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” the Mail asks.
  • (3) To be a bystander when one's discipline does offer insights and methods of value discernment is pusillanimous.
  • (4) He was the government’s top Europe adviser at David Cameron’s side throughout Britain’s EU renegotiation, where some accused him of pusillanimity in the face of Brussels intransigence .
  • (5) Result: the normally admirable Mr Grieve risked seeming a pusillanimous ministerial jobsworth unwilling to let the public learn the full truth about our foolish and meddling heir to the throne.
  • (6) But to make that a reason to abandon the policy would be pusillanimous in the extreme.
  • (7) This may be just what ministers' friends say to appease backbench plotters feeling betrayed by the apparent pusillanimity of cabinet failure to jump after Purnell.
  • (8) The Mail made clear its frustration: “Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” But while the Times called Boris Johnson “right”, the Sun is expected to take a far tougher line on a man the paper has already outed, along with Michael Gove, as being on the side of in.
  • (9) Britain and France, Europe's two military heavyweights, took the lead on the Libyan intervention in the teeth of outright opposition from Germany and pusillanimity in Washington.
  • (10) Why aren’t these faithless, pusillanimous people retaliating as they should, by surging towards Ukip with cries of revenge against all Muslims?
  • (11) For some, Wapping planted a decisive nail in the coffin of what Andrew Neil, a former Murdoch editor, has described as "all that was wrong with British industry: pusillanimous management, pig-headed unions, crazy restrictive practices, endless strikes and industrial disruption, and archaic technology".
  • (12) But only nine days into his administration, Clinton found himself at a press conference explaining “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, an awkward (and many thought pusillanimous) compromise to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military.
  • (13) The British government – pusillanimous as ever – thinks it is too sensitive a subject for us to ask the US why it is flouting an international agreement.
  • (14) The question then is, is this pusillanimity on his part?
  • (15) The pusillanimity of the remain campaign’s failure to counter these claims was indefensible.
  • (16) Amid so many humanitarian emergencies, it would be callous of Mr Cameron to pursue this nomination and pusillanimous of the secretary general to accept it.
  • (17) Heads should roll," he wrote on his website, "Isn't it really about time we decent, nice, liberal people stopped being so pusillanimously terrified of being thought 'Islamophobic' and stood up for decent, nice, liberal values?"