What's the difference between disdainful and supercilious?

Disdainful


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of disdain; expressing disdain; scornful; contemptuous; haughty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) People praying, voicing their views and heart, were met with disdain and a level of force exceeding what was needed.
  • (2) Fred had to be substituted to shield him from the crowd’s disdain.
  • (3) It may have been like punk never ‘appened, but you caught a whiff of the movement’s scorched earth puritanism in the mocking disdain with which Smash Hits addressed rock-star hedonism.
  • (4) TV's Jeremy Paxman didn't even bother hiding his disdain for the introduction of weather reports to Newsnight – "It's April.
  • (5) It shows that we still have some way to go to end bigoted banter.” The exchange was also met with disdain on Twitter.
  • (6) He has frequently tested the patience of Japan's conservative sumo authorities with his disdain for the rules of engagement in the ring and his bad behaviour off it.
  • (7) His comic adventures are too many to relate, but it may be said that they culminate in a café of 'singing waiters' where, after a wealth of comic 'business' with the tray, he shows his disdain for articulate speech by singing a vividly explicit song in gibberish.
  • (8) Immigration has been used as a 21st-century incomes policy, mixing a liberal sense of free for all with a free-market disdain for clear and effective rules.
  • (9) Riva, the oldest nominee ever for best actress category, has a very Gallic disdain for such public adulation.
  • (10) "Historians will pore over his many speeches to black audiences," wrote Ta-Nahisi Coates at The Atlantic, and "they will see a president who sought to hold black people accountable for their communities, but was disdainful of those who looked at him and sought the same".
  • (11) Born in July 1954, Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne (his surname until he went to Oxford) has always been something of a Marmite politician, attracting both loyalty and affection, as well as brickbats and disdain.
  • (12) Gil Eliyahu, who stopped working for Binyamin and Sara Netanyahu two and a half years ago, is threatening to sue the couple, claiming he was treated with "humiliating" disdain.
  • (13) It was one of at least half a dozen such unionist experiments, with a variety of partners, which foundered on the rocks of the would-be partners' infirmity of purpose, fear, suspicion and disdain of this bizarre, arrogant, impetuous upstart.
  • (14) Safronkov reserved his fiercest disdain for the UK envoy, Matthew Rycroft, who had said that UK scientists had determined that sarin had been used in the Khan Sheikhun attack and called on Russia to cut ties with Assad, who Rycroft said was bringing Moscow only “shame and humiliation”.
  • (15) The rules extended from healthcare to the environment to workplace safety, but all were grounded in Bush's disdain for the government's role as a regulatory authority.
  • (16) Stevenson did not disdain the genre in which he was operating.
  • (17) Issues Sir Ken, on the other hand, is a professional Yorkshireman and farmer - the sort of chap who prefers to call a retail outlet a shop and treated press and City with equal disdain.
  • (18) The pent-up fury of the parents reflected the intensity of the violent protests that marked a dramatic week in Mexico, which has deepened the political crisis facing President Enrique Peña Nieto as he returns from a week-long trip to China and Australia, seen by many as a sign of disdain for the suffering and anger at home.
  • (19) What is clear now, for those for whom it was ever in doubt, is the reality of Tory values: the disdain with which they view the less fortunate and the reason why the annual cull of the impoverished through malnutrition and hypothermia is not a problem to them.
  • (20) Instead – spoiler alert – to the disdain of many, it opted for a more satisfying, upbeat conclusion.

Supercilious


Definition:

  • (a.) Lofty with pride; haughty; dictatorial; overbearing; arrogant; as, a supercilious officer; asupercilious air; supercilious behavior.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
  • (2) After former tabloid editor Piers Morgan was fired from CNN , there were warnings that the US media was now poisoned to British accents and supposed superciliousness.
  • (3) But when I saw the advert it occurred to me that it, and that supercilious exclamation mark in particular, could in fact give people an excuse to express their homophobia.
  • (4) A decade later when I met him again in a hotel suite in London, it was more Mona Lisa than Cheshire Cat - coolly supercilious, ultimately indecipherable.
  • (5) It was often veiled, supercilious and sinister, but on screen he made us an offer we couldn't refuse.
  • (6) So the relationship that begins at the Milford railway station (it's two metaphorical stops down the line from Borchester – The Archers began five years after Brief Encounter) with a piece of grit in Laura's eye and Alec's unquestionably clean handkerchief will lead to afternoons together, lunch and a visit to the cinema (their silly movie is called Flames of Passion), a country drive, and an awkward trip to a friend's flat (the supercilious Valentine Dyall).
  • (7) Recently, I have caught myself saying something in everyday conversation that a few years ago would have elicited a cry of “supercilious wanker” from me if I’d heard someone else say it.
  • (8) Brexit, said Putin, was a result of irritation over Britain subsidising weaker economies, and “the British government’s self-assuredness and supercilious attitude to life-changing decisions in their own country and Europe in general”.
  • (9) I was made to regret it almost immediately when I was loudly condemned as a “supercilious prick”.
  • (10) Shimell's character is very supercilious and unsympathetic – he has a Basil Fawlty-esque fit of temper in a restaurant – and it is not easy to tell if this is deliberate, or if Kiarostami thinks Shimell elegant and cerebral.
  • (11) To others, though, he is at his supercilious worst here; floating the idea that, having withdrawn from the union, Scotland, in its beneficence, can turn round and preach to the English about how to deal with the nasty Tories.
  • (12) Their particular brand of upper class snobbery is now so anachronistic it’s simply amusing: in an obituary this week of Deborah , the writer pointed to a list of the late Duchess of Devonshire’s dislikes, which included but was not limited to “the bits of paper that fall out of magazines; female weather forecasters; the words ‘environment’, ‘conservation’ and ‘leisure’; supercilious assistants at makeup counters; dietary fads; skimmed milk; girls with slouching shoulders and Tony Blair.” And then there are the Nazis.
  • (13) You know when you're out walking and you see a party of riders, and they give you a slightly supercilious look?
  • (14) President Barack Obama is often criticised for superciliousness and arrogance.
  • (15) Now usually it would be advisable to ignore such news and treat in the same way as someone telling you that the sun is "hot and yellow", Piers Morgan is "smug and annoying", Katie Hopkins is "snobbish and supercilious" and the Mill is "tired and emotional" — it's just the way of life.