What's the difference between defuse and refuse?

Defuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To disorder; to make shapeless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Barack Obama today phoned the white policeman he said had "acted stupidly" in arresting a black Harvard professor in his own home and invited the officer to visit the White House as the president attempted to defuse a growing race row over the incident.
  • (2) Moments later, Deputy Chief Tom Roberts, of Las Vegas Metro, defused the situation by delivering the announcement that Cliven Bundy's cattle would be returned within 30 minutes.
  • (3) Winning a global consensus would defuse the Russia versus the west stand-off and put Putin under huge moral and international pressure to agree.
  • (4) Church leaders in Kisumu, in the west of Kenya that was devastated five years ago, sought to defuse tension this time.
  • (5) All the parents … worry about their children because the kids need to go to school but safety and security … is a big concern.” The Nauruan government has made efforts to defuse local hostility.
  • (6) What came out instead was a substantive document, involving concrete steps towards defusing the crisis.
  • (7) After a week in which Obama has been accused of failing to deal openly with crises such as the the targeting of Tea Party activists by the Internal Revenue Service, the White House hope it can defuse concern over drones and Guantánamo by being more transparent about its objectives.
  • (8) But to defuse any possible tensions, the authorities had decided that the teams should mix together as they lined up and that the Marseillaise should be sung by Lââm, a young R&B singer of Franco-Tunisian extraction.
  • (9) And she attacked Chancellor George Osborne and Chief Whip Michael Gove for failing to use their "very, very close" relations with the Israeli Government to defuse the crisis.
  • (10) Three seasons in the media spotlight in Madrid have clearly done him no harm, and when a potentially mischievous question comes along about England temporarily transferring their support to Wales he defuses it politely and diplomatically.
  • (11) A month later the company offered to pay £10m a year in corporate taxes in Britain for two years as it sought to defuse mounting protests.
  • (12) Enemies dismiss its moderate image and claim it is no different from Shia hardliners such as Mushayma, who called for a republic to replace the Al Khalifa dynasty, launched a campaign of civil disobedience and destroyed a dialogue between the opposition and the reformist Crown Prince Salman that might – just – have defused the crisis.
  • (13) The code, introduced in February by the Association of British Bookmakers, was meant to tighten betting controls and defuse criticism of FOBTs, on which punters can bet up to £300 a minute.
  • (14) Ronald “ count me in as a rebel ” Reagan won the presidency in 1980, but his administration actually defused the movement with a plan to sell the land to private owners – owners who would not share grazing rights with the rebellious ranchers.
  • (15) My wife thinks I will come home one day in pieces in a box.” Hom had been defusing bombs, rockets and shells for five of his 20 years in the Gaza police.
  • (16) The health secretary moved to defuse widespread anger at his threat to impose new terms and conditions on them by offering two major concessions and assurances that they will not see their pay cut or working hours extended .
  • (17) He dismisses as "recycling" a pact announced by the prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault – a former Breton mayor – last month to defuse the red caps' protests, providing for €2m of investment in the region.
  • (18) The patient's behaviour secondary to the defusion is discussed from the point of view of social significance as well as potential dangerousness.
  • (19) In Beit Lahiya, he defused a 1,000kg bomb that had landed in a bike repair shop.
  • (20) On Wednesday, as Hom set out to defuse the 500kg bomb which killed him, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were continuing indirect talks in Cairo aimed at a putting a durable ceasefire in place.

Refuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deny, as a request, demand, invitation, or command; to decline to do or grant.
  • (v. t.) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the center, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular aligment when troops ar/ about to engage the enemy; as, to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks.
  • (v. t.) To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor.
  • (v. t.) To disown.
  • (v. i.) To deny compliance; not to comply.
  • (n.) Refusal.
  • (n.) That which is refused or rejected as useless; waste or worthless matter.
  • (a.) Refused; rejected; hence; left as unworthy of acceptance; of no value; worthless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We were instantly refused entrance by the heavies at the door.
  • (2) There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.
  • (3) Such a science puts men in a couple of scientific laws and suppresses the moment of active doing (accepting or refusing) as a sufficient preassumption of reality.
  • (4) There were no deaths but one refused to have ketamine again.
  • (5) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
  • (6) She successfully appealed against the council’s decision to refuse planning permission, but neighbours have launched a legal challenge to be heard at the high court in June.
  • (7) Tony Abbott has refused to concede that saying Aboriginal people who live in remote communities have made a “lifestyle choice” was a poor choice of words as the father of reconciliation issued a public plea to rebuild relations with Indigenous people.
  • (8) The military is not being honest about the number of men on strike: most of us are refusing to eat.
  • (9) But employers who have followed a fair procedure may have the right to discipline or finally dismiss any smoker who refuses to accept the new rules.
  • (10) Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker has refused to say whether he believes in the theory of evolution, arguing that it is “a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other”.
  • (11) But in a setback to the UK, Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, refused British entreaties to attend on the grounds that it would not have been treated as equal to the Somali government.
  • (12) Ten patients had been treated by adrenalectomy, one patient by radiotherapy of the hypophysis, and one patient had refused any treatment.
  • (13) What if the court of justice refuses to answer the question?
  • (14) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
  • (15) A small band of shadow cabinet members have lined up to refuse to serve in posts they haven’t even been offered, on the basis of objection to economic policies they clearly haven’t read.
  • (16) The prerequisite for all champions is the refusal to cave in, so City's equaliser with only three minutes remaining was pleasing.
  • (17) Black males with low intentions to use condoms reported significantly more negative attitudes about the use of condoms (eg, using condoms is disgusting) and reacted with more intense anger when their partners asked about previous sexual contacts, when a partner refused sex without a condom, or when they perceived condoms as interfering with foreplay and sexual pleasure.
  • (18) As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to the release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them,” Abbas said.
  • (19) The people who will lose are not the commercial interests, and people with particular vested interests, it’s the people who pay for us, people who love us, the 97% of people who use us each week, there are 46 million people who use us every day.” Hall refused to be drawn on what BBC services would be cut as a result of the funding deal which will result in at least a 10% real terms cut in the BBC’s funding.
  • (20) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.