What's the difference between facetious and sarcastic?

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.

Sarcastic


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Sarcastical

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As Robert Vittek put Slovakia 5-1 ahead on 59 minutes, hundreds were heading for the exits while many of the remaining fans sarcastically cheered the most routine saves from their goalkeeper.
  • (2) Persepolis , the Greek name for Persia, is desperately moving and extremely funny - a little girl's sarcastic love letter to her family.
  • (3) "When you read the book, he sounds more sarcastic and snarky, closer to Holden Caulfield ," he says, "but with Dustin Hoffman it feels genuinely rabbit-in-the-headlights."
  • (4) Now, though, the staycationers are coming and the donkeys are less sarcastic.
  • (5) There's nothing defensive or snippy or sarcastic about his tone when he tells you that he can't act, or carries on as if his entire professional life is a kind of complicated mistake: he's actually rather charming company.
  • (6) "There's the side that wants to go along with it, but there's also a very sarcastic, sceptical side."
  • (7) They make sarcastic remarks about Reader being a so- called “master criminal”.
  • (8) "Here are the internet terrorists," their lawyer Rémy Josseaume sarcastically told the court in the southern town of Rodez on Tuesday.
  • (9) He does not have experience but he has potential.” Mourinho had a sarcastic comment for Fifa, after hearing that the governing body had made a statement about the on-going fallout from Mohamed Salah’s season-long loan move to Roma.
  • (10) It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitised, sarcastic and fatalistic.
  • (11) From the opening lines of Vietnam, Grant's set was sad, funny, tortured, sarcastic and, frankly, pure bloody perfection.
  • (12) That match too had its moments – notably when the Serb made a sarcastic racket-slap in response to the crowd’s cheer for a double fault that led to a break in a sloppy second set.
  • (13) The Chelsea manager, José Mourinho , has been fined after his sarcastic appraisal of officials following the defeat by Sunderland.
  • (14) But what Clegg's rightwing and leftwing critics miss, as do predictably sarcastic journalists, is that this is precisely the point.
  • (15) Or as CBS Sports' Zach Harper sarcastically noted : "Can't wait for that nationally televised Heat-Bobcats game coming up."
  • (16) He said Christie laughed and made a sarcastic joke when he learned of Sokolich’s distress over not getting his calls returned.
  • (17) Countering that complaint Israel’s UN ambassador, Ron Prosor, sent what the Israeli mission called a “sarcastic letter” to the security council listing acts of incitement by the Palestinian leadership, including last month’s drive-by shooting of a Jewish activist who had pushed for greater Jewish access to the sacred hilltop compound.
  • (18) The Valencia reporter for Onda Cero radio called it a “lack of respect”, while in AS it was described sarcastically as “English humour”.
  • (19) Not only did it get a sarcastic jeer from the Tories, but it made Vince ratty.
  • (20) Here's where I should warn readers that I may sometimes be sarcastic.