What's the difference between facetious and sarcasm?

Facetious


Definition:

  • (a.) Given to wit and good humor; merry; sportive; jocular; as, a facetious companion.
  • (a.) Characterized by wit and pleasantry; exciting laughter; as, a facetious story or reply.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This, in turn, prompted an apology from the director, along with a (possibly facetious) denial that he was "a Nazi".
  • (2) He is very facetious and constantly observing the crowd… His character is very spontaneous, which I am but, at the same time, when I prepare a spectacle, I leave nothing to chance, I am very methodical.
  • (3) There are side-effects associated with inhaled steroids, which are the most commonly prescribed preventative treatment, but if standard doses are used these are usually mild.” For his part, Bush admitted his language may have been “facetious”.
  • (4) I obviously missed the point if they were horrified – it was funny and a little facetious."
  • (5) The tweet was "obviously facetious" and "a parody", he added.
  • (6) It was the first time that the men's and women's game had unified and instead we are talking about someone who we paid to come in as entertainment and be facetious about something we stand vehemently against so I apologise for that.
  • (7) "He looks permanently pink and facetious, as though life is one big public-school prank," writes the former Labour MP Chris Mullin, usually quite forgiving towards Tories, in his diaries for December 2010.
  • (8) Numerous articles have appeared in the English literature, but we have been able to find only two editorials in semi-facetious vein in the South African Medical Journal over the last 20 years.
  • (9) Heard’s barrister, Paula Morreau, said: “Obviously it’s foreshadowed and they wanted to attempt to … ” before White interjected to say she was “just being facetious”.
  • (10) Wodehouse was what Orwell called "a political innocent", someone whose essential stupidity about politics - "his mild facetiousness covering an unthinking acceptance [of the world he inhabited]" - rescued him from the charge of the worst sorts of hypocrisy.
  • (11) Sometimes …) If we follow the form, naturally there'll be the ritual feast, the haggis piped in, addressed, sacrificed and served, the traditional speeches, the Address to the Lassies, the Reply, the Immortal Memory, which is supposed to skip the facetiousness and meditate on some aspect of the poet's life and his work.
  • (12) Asked about the claim by the former Liberal MP Lord Alton that he had "facetiously" said Smith's behaviour was no different to conduct at public schools, Steel said: "You say it is a facetious remark.
  • (13) The facetiousness couldn't obscure the truism: five months after Chua's piece, Time magazine published an article titled " Why do we fear a rising China ?"
  • (14) (Parody and doggerel and facetiousness are big features of Burns suppers.
  • (15) "We have a very facetious Liverpool sense of humour, laughing at things which are stupid," says Wells.
  • (16) You can ask a facetious question too – just be sure to keep it respectful.
  • (17) When I say “know-nothing,” I’m not being facetious or hyperbolic.
  • (18) Twain understood publicity so well that he was merely amused when Huck Finn was banned by libraries across the US; when it was banned in Omaha, Nebraska, for example, he sent a telegram to the local newspaper, observing facetiously: "I am tearfully afraid this noise is doing much harm.
  • (19) A facetious comparison, maybe, but shouldn’t home crowds give Scottish comics an advantage?
  • (20) He said: “If the last few weeks tell us anything: it is rarely a help to mention Hitler in support of an argument by an ex-mayor of London.” Paddy Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader, said Johnson was “yet another tuppenny tin-pot imitation Churchill promising to ‘fight them on the beaches’ while weakening our defences and wrecking our economy.” Owen Smith, a Labour shadow cabinet minister, said Johnson was “a cut-rate Donald Trump.” “It’s a ridiculous and facetious comment by a man who is apt to make ridiculous and facetious comments,” Smith told LBC.

Sarcasm


Definition:

  • (n.) A keen, reproachful expression; a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a cutting jest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I relayed all this depressing news to Prof Ashton, who replied with spirited sarcasm, "I've put forward my idea!
  • (2) Lendl and Mauresmo are former world No1s but he is an unsmiling martinet with a cutting line in sarcasm, she a mentor who chooses her words like a schoolteacher.
  • (3) But by actually writing the word "innocent", Tugendhat was able to judge her stage directions to be the opposite, as the English are known for their sarcasm.
  • (4) Mail them to knowledge@theguardian.com , marked Curb Your Sarcasm.
  • (5) April 14, 2014 As the sarcasm-laden ribbing entered its second day, the minerals council began to elicit some sympathy for its horribly backfiring campaign.
  • (6) Meanwhile traders and global companies are forecasting "business as usual", Reuters reports: [Rosneft head] Igor Sechin himself responded to being penalised for the Ukraine policies of his friend President Vladimir Putin with sarcasm, calling it "an appreciation of our efficiency".
  • (7) The inference of sarcasm from the refreshingly rebellious wife of the Speaker could only be drawn in the full knowledge that Britons run on such humour like midwesterns do corn oil.
  • (8) Thus recently I've been scouring friends' timelines looking to add unwelcome sarcasm and scorn to all the gaiety, enthusiasm and affection.
  • (9) Sarcasm is a useful weapon because it’s not common in Thai humour.
  • (10) Sarcasm is not a defense but a form of aggressive discharge.
  • (11) He criticised Obama for the sarcasm he displayed over the smaller navy.
  • (12) More from the walking monument to sarcasm that is Tom Waterhouse: "When I've bought my chalet later this year you'd be most welcome to rent it at a very reasonable rate for a few weeks so you can write that great novel you must as a journalist be constantly dreaming of unleashing on an unsuspecting public."
  • (13) Read more Corbyn appeared to be wearying of the relentless media attention and came close to sarcasm.
  • (14) Responding to a pledge by Romney to increase military spending and a complaint that the navy had fewer ships, Obama resorted to heavy sarcasm.
  • (15) 'The sentences,' wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in a brilliant New Yorker profile of Chomsky 10 years ago, 'are accusations of guilt, but not from a position of innocence or hope for something better: Chomsky's sarcasm is the scowl of a fallen world, the sneer of hell's veteran to its appalled naifs' – and thus, in an odd way, static and ungenerative.
  • (16) In his longest-running column, entitled For My Mother Bohemians, he relentlessly exposed the shortcomings of the political elite to the full force of his sarcasm by quoting their words back at them.
  • (17) The Curmudgeon Moans and has a great line in sarcasm.
  • (18) • Meet a student from... Greece: ‘UK lad culture was a surprise – and in Greece we don’t have pre-drinking’ • Meet a student from... France: ‘I miss the patisserie, boulangerie and steak - but France isn’t that far…’ • Meet a student from... Ireland: ‘I’m always subjected to atrocious Irish accents and jokes about drinking’ • Meet a student from... Hong Kong: ‘I surprisingly miss the heat, humidity and crowdedness of Hong Kong’ • Meet a student from... Germany: ‘I brought a meat hammer from Germany so I can make schnitzel’ • Meet a student from... Malaysia: ‘I miss how, in Malaysia, everything revolves around food’ • Meet a student from... the US: ‘As an American, it took me four months to catch on to British sarcasm’ • Meet a student from... Nigeria: ‘People sit around drinking tea, which isn’t common in Nigeria.
  • (19) The hypothesis that people of different races and sexes, having divergent temperaments and beliefs, will also show different factors involved in their attitudes toward death was not supported because the factors of escape, depressive-fear, mortality, and sarcasm were common to them all.
  • (20) January 19, 2014 7.03pm GMT Preamble So this year's AFC Championship Game match-up pits the New England Patriots against the Denver Broncos and I know what you're thinking, hey if only there were storylines for this game (searches in vain for a sarcasm font).