What's the difference between fatuous and inane?

Fatuous


Definition:

  • (a.) Feeble in mind; weak; silly; stupid; foolish; fatuitous.
  • (a.) Without reality; illusory, like the ignis fatuus.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There certainly has been a danger that the dispute could be diverted into a chauvinistic blind alley, not least because of the cue given by Brown's cynical and fatuous use of the British National Party's slogan "British jobs for British workers", which was then thrown back in his face by the strikers.
  • (2) So far, the president has been more fatuous than fascistic, though he belatedly realized what an albatross the bill had become.
  • (3) Yet such is Britain's fatuously entitled "war on drugs".
  • (4) First, Brazil did not have any penalty appeals against Mexico , so the media’s thick-headed behaviour could not have triggered the inevitable payback on this occasion, rendering Scolari’s complaint somewhat fatuous, at least in terms of what had just happened.
  • (5) But likewise, insisting on economic deprivation, as though that is the sole context and alone explains their motivations, is only marginally less fatuous.
  • (6) It's not quite believable that height is unimportant to Sellar, although he's right that it's fatuous to chase superlatives, given that the Shard does not quite equal the 82-year-old Chrysler building in New York.
  • (7) Iran's religious minorities are arrested on fatuous charges, endure trials that violate the state's own due process, are jailed on unproven convictions and tortured in prison.
  • (8) Even if you think the Twitter storms about political “misspeaks” and “gaffes” are fatuous, consider what you did not hear after the PM’s outburst last week.
  • (9) This involves tight prioritisation – allowing yourself a certain amount of time per task – and trying not to get caught up in less productive activities, such as unstructured meetings that tend to take up lots of time.” We’ve all been there, wishing we weren’t stuck in the same room as a bunch of fatuous blowhards – or, as Michael Foley puts it in his superb book The Age of Absurdity , “the colleagues who speak at length in every meeting, in loud confident tones that suggest critical independence, but never deviate from the official line”.
  • (10) In addition, these studies also risk annoying the project's youngsters by asking them questions they perceive to be intrusive or fatuous.
  • (11) The prize in his view, though, is "not about who's the best: I think that's fatuous".
  • (12) When Phillips first spoke of sleepwalking 10 years ago , even David Miliband tut-tutted, calling his concerns “fatuous”.
  • (13) In this respect, the idea of "saving for the nation" is fatuous, jingoistic nonsense.
  • (14) ■ "Wittering inanity", "Fatuous", "Pass the jubilee sickbag".
  • (15) Shaun Spiers Chief executive, Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) • The government’s plans to build 13,000 houses for sale at just 20% off ludicrous market values is a fatuous response to the biggest housing crisis since the second world war.
  • (16) All the money and clothes and fatuous conversation have driven Bateman mad, we might think.
  • (17) "Let us quit this indecent exercise of fatuous plaints, including raising hopes, even now, with talk of 'posthumous' conferment, when you know damned well that the Nobel committee does not indulge in such tradition.
  • (18) Not a Brexit conspiracy, but assuredly an inspiration for Boris Johnson’s fatuous and burbling battle cry of “ Independence day !” Now the Tory leadership campaign has begun and, incredibly, movie advertising is again playing its role.
  • (19) A failure to recognise this distinctiveness was well demonstrated in last year's fatuous talk about the Olympics' "growth dividend".
  • (20) In the decades that followed, Frost became a media personality and comedian, as comfortable cross-examining the most heavyweight political figures of the day as hosting Through the Keyhole, the show typifying the fatuousness of celebrity culture, in which panellists were given a video tour of a mystery famous guest's property and asked to identify the owner from the evidence.

Inane


Definition:

  • (a.) Without contents; empty; void of sense or intelligence; purposeless; pointless; characterless; useless.
  • (n.) That which is void or empty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He throws confessions about his love of guns or his lust for violence into restaurant conversations, but his inanely sophisticated companions carry on conversing about the varieties of sushi or the use of fur by leading designers.
  • (2) Indeed, the internet’s troll culture developed, at least in part, as a response to the inane “participation” offered by online marketers.
  • (3) The dialogue is perfect: the broker waxes inanely on ("A lovely space"), and the prospective buyers ooze gratitude at being granted a viewing.
  • (4) She reminds me of the time David was ridiculed for being photographed grinning inanely with a banana.
  • (5) This decade, on the other hand, has been relatively lax when it comes to pumping out neuron-destroying musical inanity.
  • (6) The internet has been awash with rumours, the inane chirping of the Twitter ranks rising slowly to a roar.
  • (7) Nobody, not even Geoff Boycott, cares about such inane guff.
  • (8) A sublime opener was followed by the inane offence that triggered Russia's comeback for an ominous victory.
  • (9) Jean-Paul Belmondo disrupts a conventional household in À Double Tour (Web of Passion, 1959) by playing inane practical jokes and completely disregarding table manners.
  • (10) This may be the only way to early counteract medically inane causal relationship being presented by the relative's advocate.
  • (11) One moment Mor was drawing a foul from Pavel Kaderabek and Selcuk Inan was hitting the wall from the free-kick, the next Kaderabek was in on Babacan’s goal and firing in a shot that was deflected wide for a corner.
  • (12) In the minds of the kind of people who bring Talking Heads CDs to parties, their apparent popularity doubtless brings to mind Nietzschean notions of the inanity of the herd and the eternal attraction of bad art.
  • (13) TURKEY Fatih Terim, now in his third spell as Turkey manager, can call on an extraordinarily technically gifted midfield, with the holding midfielder Selcuk Inan allowing Barcelona’s Arda Turan and the Leverkusen free-kick specialist Hakan Calhanoglu to attack.
  • (14) "Inane stuff about what twits are having for breakfast.
  • (15) Before you write off digital stickers as inane, they are a decent moneyspinner for LINE: of the $58m the company made in sales in the first quarter of 2013, half came from selling games and 30%, or roughly $17m, from sales of its 8,000 different stickers.
  • (16) There were also bad and inane films - playing Chinese in Dragon Seed (1944); helpless in Without Love (1945) and The Sea Of Grass (1947), both with Tracy; trying to be Clara Schumann in Song Of Love (1947); and in Vincente Minnelli's neurotic Undercurrent (1946).
  • (17) As holidays are taken and the inane rituals of party conferences loom, too many politicians and commentators seem to have fallen for a comfy bit of groupthink: that what with the odd poor poll showing and this sudden outbreak of silence, the menace has receded and we have passed “peak Ukip”.
  • (18) Yes, where I live we would all appreciate a better commute – which, since I have this opportunity to address you on the subject, would include the summary dismissal of the people who inflict those inane recorded announcements about holding on to our luggage, standing behind the yellow line, using the lifts when carrying heavy items, avoiding slipping over when it has been frosty overnight, and reading the safety instructions before travelling.
  • (19) 'An inane jumble': Trump foreign policy splits GOP on issue party once agreed on Read more Steps away from the chaos, Democrats at the US Capitol used the opportunity to portray Republicans as belonging to the “Party of Trump”.
  • (20) ■ "Wittering inanity", "Fatuous", "Pass the jubilee sickbag".