What's the difference between despondent and sullen?

Despondent


Definition:

  • (a.) Marked by despondence; given to despondence; low-spirited; as, a despondent manner; a despondent prisoner.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After she hit the two-year mark, five-month mark, she’s been despondent.
  • (2) It was hard to reconcile Pistorius's despondent figure in black suit and tie and white shirt with the "blade runner" who thrilled stadiums around the world and became the first amputee to run in the Olympics .
  • (3) But actually what we felt as the days and weeks passed – me and Kelly and my father – was a sense of despondency, of being let down, of just sinking through the system.
  • (4) In 46%, the subject had expressed despondency over illness.
  • (5) There is a sense of despondency spreading in Pakistan.
  • (6) The value of Brazil's currency, the real, has ballooned since President Lula took power, leaving exporters despondent and leading Goldman Sachs to classify it as the most overvalued currency on earth.
  • (7) , became a battle manual for despondent Democrats after George W Bush’s second election victory.
  • (8) He told worshippers at Durham cathedral: "It is very easy to be despondent about the church.
  • (9) Pablo Simón, a political science professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University, argues that a fresh election and the attendant politicking could further alienate an already despondent electorate.
  • (10) In Spike Jonze 's Her, set in a near future LA, Phoenix is Theodore, a despondent, solitary writer whose life picks up when he falls in love with Samantha, a portable, artificially intelligent operating system who provides more than he could have hoped for.
  • (11) [It is] all the Ds: despair, depression, despondency.” “Chinese media are under a lot of pressure right now.
  • (12) Jose Mourinho: Rafa Benitez destroyed my work at Inter within six months Read more There wasn’t too much to get excited or despondent about in any of the displays in New York, Charlotte or here in Washington DC.
  • (13) Rob came very close to death many times, and I think part of James's despondency now comes from having saved Rob so many times, only to lose him in the end.
  • (14) They have been left despondent by Francis's occasional comments on the issue, in which he has generally defended the church while condemning the abuse.
  • (15) Despondent MPs tonight voiced fears that Britain may experience a milder ­version of the "clean hands" affair that brought down Italy's postwar political settlement in the 1990s.
  • (16) Strong was despondent over Bilibid but recovered and developed a noteworthy career in American tropical medicine.
  • (17) It has been demonstrated that a small proportion of women taking oral contraceptives develop a depressive syndrome characterized by despondency, tension, and changes in sex desire.
  • (18) A classic portrait of the grieving widower, his despondency did not surprise mental health professionals.
  • (19) For those who don't get the results they hoped for – and their chosen universities – the moments after the envelope are full of dread and despondency.
  • (20) It is easy to see why players bounce off Klopp and indeed it was tempting to wonder if Chelsea’s despondent players were casting the occasional envious glance at the German, whose energetic and engrossing touchline demeanour offered a welcome shade of light next to José Mourinho ’s dark scowl.

Sullen


Definition:

  • (a.) Lonely; solitary; desolate.
  • (a.) Gloomy; dismal; foreboding.
  • (a.) Mischievous; malignant; unpropitious.
  • (a.) Gloomily angry and silent; cross; sour; affected with ill humor; morose.
  • (a.) Obstinate; intractable.
  • (a.) Heavy; dull; sluggish.
  • (n.) One who is solitary, or lives alone; a hermit.
  • (n.) Sullen feelings or manners; sulks; moroseness; as, to have the sullens.
  • (v. t.) To make sullen or sluggish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Most defendants in multimillion-euro fraud cases turn up to court ashen-faced and sullen-looking.
  • (2) Broadly defined, this sort of behaviour involves procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, obstructionism, self-pity and a tendency to create chaotic situations.
  • (3) The result is a weird kind of dissonance: blogs and op-ed pieces written in London salivate over "the most important byelection in 30 years" and claim – with some justification – that its outcome will have profound consequences for the two coalition parties, while most locals view it all with a sullen detachment.
  • (4) They were instantly swamped by sunlight; more the sullen accused on trial than Her Majesty's front bench.
  • (5) "Even a total stranger could experience the chilling effect of seeing sullen pairs of the Guardia Civil walking the street."
  • (6) In his memoir , Brown’s former aide Damian McBride candidly describes the thrill of having the ear of one of the most powerful men in the land – though he confesses the prime minister would “stare at [him] sullenly for a moment or two, then say: ‘Get me Ed Balls.’” I certainly met plenty of chiefs of staff and spin doctors who jealously guarded their privileged access to a particular politician and their status as that MP’s “vicar on Earth”.
  • (7) Against a backdrop described by the King's Fund thinktank as "deepening pessimism about the ability of the NHS to make ends meet, particularly in 2015-16", many on the health side are sullenly resentful of "their" money going into the BCF.
  • (8) Factor analysis of this brief inventory resulted in eight factors: disorientation, impaired concentration and thinking, paranoid-hallucinatory symptoms, anxiety, sullen inadequacy (restraint depression), hostility, loss of control, giving up.
  • (9) Through a double-glazed window in an adjacent room, a sullen security guard in khaki watches over all.
  • (10) Shortly after midnight Friday, partygoers belted Purple Rain together, a notably moving moment amid a sullen day.
  • (11) That sullen death-stare she perfected as April in Parks & Rec should come in handy somewhere on the dark side, perhaps as a female Sith Lord – a Sith Lady, if you will.
  • (12) If you’re sensing that the Mill is bored, or better yet, indifferent, or better yet, showing all the sullen ardour of a husband obliging himself to make love to his wife in the thick of a carnal indifference, then take your right hand, place it over your left shoulder and give yourself a big old pat on the back.
  • (13) I interviewed G-Unit once (minus the banged-up Tony Yayo) and they were the antithesis of the sullen, aggressive rapper stereotype (although they did turn their noses up at the very idea of letting any of the "British food" at their 5-star hotel pass their lips, and sent their manager out for a McDonalds instead).
  • (14) There are roadblocks manned by sullen-looking teenagers cradling AK-47s, but no meaningful law and order.
  • (15) Behind came a straggling caravan of mules and porters, including a couple of teenage boys who watched the college girls with sullen fascination.
  • (16) McFadden's penalty brought City a point, at which point William Gallas went all precious, attacking an advertising board and sitting sullenly on the pitch after the final whistle.
  • (17) A period as manager of Port Vale, after Stoke had rather sullenly parted company with him, reducing his wages and refusing him complimentary tickets, was ill-starred.
  • (18) It made him look sullen, grumpy and at worst disengaged from his challenger.
  • (19) Obscenity is lecherous and sullen in regard to women and virulent towards men: it may then be interpreted as a mean of struggle against the anxiety of death.
  • (20) Manchester United survived a couple of scares in 2008 at Wigan, but ultimately won 2-0 comfortably, while in 2010 Chelsea romped to an 8-0 victory over Wigan at Stamford Bridge as United sullenly and pointlessly beat Stoke City 4-0 at home.