What's the difference between fault and gaffe?

Fault


Definition:

  • (n.) Defect; want; lack; default.
  • (n.) Anything that fails, that is wanting, or that impairs excellence; a failing; a defect; a blemish.
  • (n.) A moral failing; a defect or dereliction from duty; a deviation from propriety; an offense less serious than a crime.
  • (n.) A dislocation of the strata of the vein.
  • (n.) In coal seams, coal rendered worthless by impurities in the seam; as, slate fault, dirt fault, etc.
  • (n.) A lost scent; act of losing the scent.
  • (n.) Failure to serve the ball into the proper court.
  • (v. t.) To charge with a fault; to accuse; to find fault with; to blame.
  • (v. t.) To interrupt the continuity of (rock strata) by displacement along a plane of fracture; -- chiefly used in the p. p.; as, the coal beds are badly faulted.
  • (v. i.) To err; to blunder, to commit a fault; to do wrong.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If Cory Bernardi wasn’t currently in a period of radio silence as he contemplates his immediate political future he’d be all over this too, mining the Trumpocalypse – or in our domestic context, mining the fertile political fault line where Coalition support intersects with One Nation support.
  • (2) The most common seenario was a vehicle-vehicle collision in which seat belts were not used and the decedent or the decedent's driver was at fault.
  • (3) The venture capitalist argued in his report, commissioned by the Downing Street policy guru Steve Hilton, in favour of "compensated no fault-dismissal" for small businesses.
  • (4) As he told us: 'Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.'
  • (5) Whatever their other faults, most Republicans running for office this year do not share Trump’s unwillingness to condemn the Ku Klux Klan.
  • (6) There could be no faulting the atmosphere or the football drama.
  • (7) People think it must be your fault that you’re in this position; it isn’t.
  • (8) Defense Mechanism Test applied to a subgroup of 20 patients suggested that high perceptual defense may be related to injury occurrence in patients at fault for the accident.
  • (9) Yes, if it helps kill the idea that autism is somebody's "fault".
  • (10) The SEM photographs demonstrated the faults which can be eliminated by the use of a stereomicroscope and showed also those which derive from the physical and chemical properties of the amalgam.
  • (11) He said the incident happened after Hookem told Woolfe it was his own fault he did not get his nomination papers in on time.
  • (12) The result is a very satisfactory isolation of the wound, eliminating faults in aseptic technique but requiring fresh sterilisation for each new procedure.
  • (13) Another issue that deserves attention is the impact on future generations, because biological faults introduced by the technique could be handed down from one generation to the next.
  • (14) I’m not someone to gloss over the BBC’s faults, problems or challenges – I see it as part of my job to identify and pursue them.
  • (15) Despite all these fault lines, China is not going to collapse; it is far too resilient for that.
  • (16) Proper provision of ground-fault circuit interrupter protection, particularly at temporary work sites, could have prevented most of the deaths from 110-volt AC.
  • (17) These achievements, and faults, will find stark contrast with Trump’s administration; certainly Trump’s nominations for key positions in his cabinet that relate to climate change have prompted alarm by experts and campaigners.
  • (18) Cameron did give ground by saying that "no fault dismissal" would only apply to micro companies and not to every employer in the country.
  • (19) The failures were mostly related to technical faults.
  • (20) These more complex units call for new methods of fault detection and diagnosis.

Gaffe


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Dedicate it to the off-the-cuff remark – the gaffe, even – which averts a war.
  • (2) Every time he opened his mouth he created another gaffe," he said.
  • (3) This is, admittedly, a difficult area for David Cameron, who, when questioned by David Letterman on US TV in 2012, was unable to say that Magna Carta simply meant great charter, but perhaps we should overlook this fairly amazing gaffe (for an Oxford-educated prime minister) and encourage him to inaugurate a national movement of political renewal with the charter as the context and inspiration.
  • (4) Mitt Romney's historic gaffe caught on video – published, with great timing, by the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine – in which he said that his campaign was writing off 47% of American voters since they "depended on government" handouts, was committed in an equally significant manner, as he delivered the remarks to a closed group of potential major donors in Florida.
  • (5) There is strikingly little support for the Republican contender whose gaffe-prone visit to Europe in July won him few friends and who regularly turns European welfarism and "entitlement societies" into points of mockery in his campaign speeches.
  • (6) Following controversy over the candidate's comments on the preparedness of London to host the Olympic Games, his aides will be anxious to avoid further gaffes.
  • (7) Democrats are planning to highlight what they see as the Republican party’s unpalatable views on immigration over the weekend, sending “trackers” to monitor the event in search of further gaffes from potential candidates.
  • (8) The comedy, in which she stars as gaffe-prone vice-president Selina Meyer, has been seen as a personal triumph for Louis-Dreyfus, as well as a stateside vindication for the comic method of its creator, Armando Iannucci .
  • (9) Roe worried about “all these gaffes” that Biden made as well as whether the 72-year-old had the necessary energy to serve in the Oval Office.
  • (10) Photograph: Barcroft Media Newsnight's new editor, former Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz, also has form with the comic sidestep after his Twitter "snoring, boring" gaffe about Rachel Reeves.
  • (11) Campaigning before the June election Demirtaş had been full of mischief, needling Erdoğan, making fun of the AKP’s gaffes.
  • (12) Gaffes are a feature of politicians and the electoral process, not a bug.
  • (13) In one high-profile gaffe, the expertise of one member of Macierewicz’s commission was revealed to have been based upon experience of constructing model aircraft, sitting in a fighter jet’s cockpit during an air show, and observing plane wings while looking out of a passenger window.
  • (14) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
  • (15) You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Sean Spicer apologizes for 'even Hitler didn't use chemical weapons' gaffe Read more Spicer’s assertion during the Jewish holiday of Passover provoked instant outrage on social media and from some Holocaust memorial groups, who accused him of minimising Hitler’s crimes.
  • (16) This week the rapper said his gaffe at the MTV Video Music awards in 2009 was "bigger ... than the Bush moment".
  • (17) Clinton, while trotting out her plan on college affordability , has been robust in her attacks on Republican candidates of late – speaking out against gaffes on women’s reproductive rights from Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
  • (18) The editor's hope is that there will be "a story", perhaps a new policy initiative but, better still, a "gaffe".
  • (19) If it isn’t frontbench gaffes, it’s the perceived lack of commitment to the armed forces or armed police officers distracting from government blunders.
  • (20) Following a gaffe-strewn visit to Britain , where he queried the Olympic host's fitness to stage the Games, and after stirring controversy in Israel by calling Jerusalem the Israeli capital and seeming to back unilateral Israeli strikes against Iran , the Republican White House contender arrived on Monday in Poland, where he is to deliver a setpiece speech on democracy and freedom.