What's the difference between fierce and truculent?

Fierce


Definition:

  • (superl.) Furious; violent; unrestrained; impetuous; as, a fierce wind.
  • (superl.) Vehement in anger or cruelty; ready or eager to kill or injure; of a nature to inspire terror; ferocious.
  • (superl.) Excessively earnest, eager, or ardent.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Migrant voters are almost as numerous as current Ukip supporters but they are widely overlooked and risk being increasingly disaffected by mainstream politics and the fierce rhetoric around immigration caused partly by the rise of Ukip,” said Robert Ford from Manchester University, the report’s co-author.
  • (2) Yves was the vulnerable, suffering artist and Pierre the fiercely controlling protector: a man who, in Lespert's film, is painfully aware of his public image – "the pimp who's found his all-star hooker".
  • (3) Some business groups have been lobbying fiercely against the reform, though others support it.
  • (4) As Greece pleads with its eurozone creditors for more time in meeting its fiscal adjustment targets, Dombrovskis is a fierce champion of surgical austerity applied quickly and ruthlessly.
  • (5) Despite its dominance, the PAP continues to fiercely restrict freedom of assembly and speech.
  • (6) Recruitment has not returned to pre-credit crunch levels, and there is fierce competition for new jobs.
  • (7) And in Colorado the fiercely anti-immigration conservative and former presidential candidate Ted Tancredo was comfortably overcome by a more moderate former congressman, Bob Beauprez, in the primary to choose the Republican candidate for the state's governor.
  • (8) Andrea Dworkin, who has died aged 58, was a feminist who came to represent the fierce debate on pornography and sexual violence.
  • (9) In the past fortnight protesters have found themselves caught in the middle of fierce gun battles between regime forces and defected soldiers who have been guarding the main protest camp since March.
  • (10) The last of these come into force in 2014, and after fierce resistance from the larger operators, Kroes is not proposing any more price reductions.
  • (11) Thus in your own words you have said why it was utterly inappropriate for you to use the platform of a Pac hearing in this way.” He suggested that many professionals were “in despair at the lack of understanding and cheap haranguing which characterise your manner” after a series of hearings at which Hodge has led fierce interrogations of senior business figures and others.
  • (12) Allegations that British soldiers murdered insurgents and mutilated their bodies after a fierce firefight in Iraq were roundly rejected by an official inquiry, which also found that a number of prisoners were abused and that troops breached the Geneva convention.
  • (13) So there will no doubt be another fierce battle next year over this issue.
  • (14) There's something very earnest about the build up to this MLS Cup final, as if the battle on the field between Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake starts with a competition to see which team can "respect" the other one more fiercely.
  • (15) Cameron is caught between fierce opposition to reform on his own benches, Labour criticism of the bill, and the determination of his deputy Nick Clegg to press ahead with a reform that has been delayed for 100 years.
  • (16) Liverpool were restricted to shots from the edge of the area throughout the opening half, mainly from Alberto who went close with one curling effort and had fierce drive parried by the goalkeeper Mark Oxley.
  • (17) However, City sources said that SABMiller is likely to launch a fierce defence against a deal and could instead look to combine with Diageo , the British owner of Guinness and Johnnie Walker whisky.
  • (18) Tesco’s accounting scandal has led to concerns about the way the sector handles payments from suppliers for promoting products or hitting sales targets, and UK grocers are operating under fierce competition from discounters such as the German company Aldi which has reported a 65% rise in profits in the UK.
  • (19) Liverpool did not begin like a side who believed a top-four finish was beyond them and continued to apply fierce pressure.
  • (20) Sitting in the Khartoum restaurant as the fierce late-afternoon sun intrudes through the windows, Lubna dismisses the notion that western praise might be a drawback in a country like Sudan.

Truculent


Definition:

  • (a.) Fierce; savage; ferocious; barbarous; as, the truculent inhabitants of Scythia.
  • (a.) Cruel; destructive; ruthless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Ferguson's truculence conceals an even deeper romantic streak.
  • (2) In this dance to the music of time in Britain, the Tories are sworn to maintain the hegemony of the free market and Labour to ensure that the idiot punters don’t become too truculent.
  • (3) Western leaders, increasingly exasperated at Iran's nuclear truculence, were little assuaged by Iran's belated admission of the site's existence, which appears to have come after Iran learned that western intelligence services were on to its secret establishment.
  • (4) Yet Begin made the mistake of alienating Thatcher with his truculent stance over settlement expansion, and their relationship never recovered.
  • (5) Wreathed in smiles and profuse apologies for delaying Chisora, after he and Andy Gray had chit-chatted with the often truculent boxer on live radio, Keys delivers some cheery advice in the TalkSport studios.
  • (6) Less publicly, Trump appears tacitly or explicitly to have given the green light to the Saudi royals to go on the offensive against its truculent neighbour.
  • (7) The business secretary understands perfectly well that the slump is all about a want of demand – and cannot be explained by rightwing fairy stories about truculent workers pricing themselves out of the market.
  • (8) It was just bonkers," says Alan Postlethwaite, the truculent vicar of Seascale, who was accused of being a crypto-communist for even thinking the plant might be linked to cancers.
  • (9) There was the truculent Ray Donovan, featuring Jon Voight; the truculent Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman as an absurdly tetchy racetrack gambler and gangster, involving much mumbling in half-lit rooms; and there was the truculent Boss, starring Kelsey Grammer as a corrupt Chicago mayor, which never quite escaped the stigma of expecting Niles Crane to burst into the room in a flap about missing his appointment to visit the newly opened downtown doll museum.
  • (10) The Russian foreign ministry released a truculent statement before Tillerson arrived in Moscow, noting that Russian-American relations were going through the “most difficult period since the end of the cold war”.
  • (11) Her face is truculent; she stares up and away from Oberon, who is apparently being restrained by a sharp-faced Puck.
  • (12) He took after Rabelais in his humour and certainly also in his truculence, but he was above all himself in his films as in life."
  • (13) No, the bigger question is this: can Europe handle democracy, however awkward and messy and downright truculent it may be?
  • (14) Strongly Eurosceptic, with hardline anti-abortion views and hawkish foreign policy, he established himself as a truculent minister who was not afraid to make clear his opposition to coalition policies and Cameron's "compassionate conservatism".
  • (15) At a later date, speaking on Oprah Winfrey's chatshow, the famously truculent Campbell refused to comment further, saying simply: "I don't want to be involved in this man's case – he has done some terrible things and I don't want to put my family in danger."
  • (16) Edward VI was originally painted with his legs far apart, echoing a famously truculent image of his father – but it evidently looked too peculiar in a portrait of a young boy, and so the artist changed it to a more natural stance.
  • (17) All patients met Asher's description for the emergency presentation, the truculence-evasiveness manner, the luxuriance of tales, the eclecticism of the alleged symptoms, the vehement request of dangerous or painful procedures and the apparent senselessness.
  • (18) Cross-country runs began with a truculent jog until we were out of sight of the teachers, at which point we would repair to the nearest newsagent for sweets and fags.
  • (19) Nevertheless I went to Old Trafford, in some way heartened by the purity of the truculence, football now having been largely rinsed of its scintillating aggression.
  • (20) He is one of the most skilled practitioners of the tricky art – much under-rated, sometimes mocked – of keeping the show on the road when the cameras are rolling, dealing with truculent interviewees, sometimes juggling numerous stories and at others filling airtime with informed and engaging commentary when, frankly, there's not much going on.