What's the difference between fatuous and superficial?

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.

Superficial


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to the superficies, or surface; lying on the surface; shallow; not deep; as, a superficial color; a superficial covering; superficial measure or contents; superficial tillage.
  • (a.) Reaching or comprehending only what is obvious or apparent; not deep or profound; shallow; -- said especially in respect to study, learning, and the like; as, a superficial scholar; superficial knowledge.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A simple method of selective catheterization of the superficial femoral artery (SFA) following antegrade puncture of the common femoral artery is described.
  • (2) Are you ready to vote?” is the battle cry, and even the most superficial of glances at the statistics tells why.
  • (3) These data suggest that basophilic cell function in the superficial mucous layer in the nose is of greater significance in the development of nasal symptoms in response to nasal allergy than either mucociliary activity or nasal mucosal hypersensitivity to histamine.
  • (4) After haemorrhage in conscious rabbits total renal blood flow fell by 25%, this fall being confined to the superficial renal cortex.
  • (5) This was followed firstly by superficial and then by deep ulceration of the mucosa.
  • (6) The soleus, deep portions of the vastus lateralis, and superficial portions of the vastus lateralis muscles were examined to represent slow-twitch-oxidative, fast-twitch-oxidative-glycolytic, and fast-twitch-glycolytic skeletal muscle fiber types, respectively.
  • (7) The normal anatomical position of the point of junction of the superficial cerebral veins with the superior sagittal and transverse sinuses of the rat was studied with an analytical mathematical method.
  • (8) Tinea versicolor was the commonest superficial dermatomycosis affecting nearly half of all adults seen.
  • (9) It is concluded that catechol potentiates excitatory transmission at the LOT-superficial pyramidal cell synapse, possibly by increasing evoked transmitter release.
  • (10) This study presents data supporting a selective antinociceptive role for DA at the spinal level, where it has a widespread antinociceptive influence, on cells in both the superficial and deeper dorsal horn.
  • (11) In fact the deep femoral artery represents an exceptional and privileged route for anastomosis that is capable of replacing almost perfectly an obstructed superficial femoral artery and also in a more limited way femoro-popliteal arteries with extensive obstructions.
  • (12) Superficial x-ray therapy is an excellent modality for the treatment of squamous cell carcinomas of the lower extremity in the elderly.
  • (13) This suggests a possible depressant effect of both GABA and taurine at superficial cortical layers.
  • (14) CD8 positive cells were detected randomly in all regions of the mucosa, whereas CD4 positive cells tended to be clustered in the superficial portion of the lamina propria.
  • (15) Comparing the tolerable side-effects with their favourable therapeutic results, BCG is considered to be suitable for the prevention of recurrences in treating superficial bladder tumours.
  • (16) This study concluded that inverted positioning for short periods significantly increased spinal length and reduced emg activity of the superficial lumbar area musculature of normal males.
  • (17) No common aetiological factor could be found, although four of these patients did have a mild or moderatley active superficial chronic gastritis.
  • (18) Disturbance of bone metabolism is observed in both the superficial (delta) and slow exchanges (Ve), which are also significantly decreased.
  • (19) The results showed that dogfish lenses developed superficial opacities due to near-UV exposure.
  • (20) The neighbouring neocortical areas receive afferents neither from the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus nor from the ventral mesencephalic tegmentum; their catecholamine innervation is mainly confined to the superficial layers and appears to be of noradrenergic nature.