What's the difference between flaw and foible?

Flaw


Definition:

  • (n.) A crack or breach; a gap or fissure; a defect of continuity or cohesion; as, a flaw in a knife or a vase.
  • (n.) A defect; a fault; as, a flaw in reputation; a flaw in a will, in a deed, or in a statute.
  • (n.) A sudden burst of noise and disorder; a tumult; uproar; a quarrel.
  • (n.) A sudden burst or gust of wind of short duration.
  • (v. t.) To crack; to make flaws in.
  • (v. t.) To break; to violate; to make of no effect.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) However, each of the studies had numerous methodological flaws which biased their results against finding a relationship: either their outcome measures had questionable validity, their research designs were inappropriate, or the statistical analyses were poorly conceived.
  • (2) Its experiments are so hopelessly flawed that the results are meaningless."
  • (3) Clute and Harrison took a scalpel to the flaws of the science fiction we loved, and we loved them for it.
  • (4) I can still see flaws in what I'm doing, but I think I delivered.
  • (5) In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.
  • (6) We conclude that individual case review can be severely flawed and therefore should not be used to measure institutional quality of patient care.
  • (7) The power of the landed elite is often cited as a major structural flaw in Pakistani politics – an imbalance that hinders education, social equality and good governance (there is no agricultural tax in Pakistan).
  • (8) The council offered him a tea urn | Frances Ryan Read more Government attempts to decrease the disproportionately high levels of unemployment among disabled people have had little impact, the report notes, while notorious “fit-for-work” tests were riven with flaws.
  • (9) Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said he was "outraged" by what he described as the administration's "deeply flawed analysis and what can only be interpreted as lip service to one of the greatest threats to our children's future: climate disruption".
  • (10) What the film does, though, is use these incidents to build an idiosyncratic but insightful picture of Lawrence, played indelibly by Peter O'Toole in his debut role: a complicated, egomaniacal and physically masochistic man, at once god-like and all too flawed, with a tenuous grip both on reality and on sanity.
  • (11) fbi justified homicide chart Academics and specialists have long been aware of flaws in the FBI numbers, which are based on voluntary submissions by local law enforcement agencies of paperwork known as supplementary homicide reports.
  • (12) The system was "flawed" and the rules were "vague".
  • (13) Most of the 138 studies contained serious flaws in research design, such as lack of control subjects, unspecified manner of data collection, and absence of diagnostic criteria.
  • (14) Poor crossing undermined Liverpool in the first leg, Klopp had claimed, but the flaw was remedied quickly in the return.
  • (15) A variety of quality tests, of biomechanical screws, are used, before performing the operations, that flaws may be detected.
  • (16) The sugar tax was greeted with hostility by the industry and Wright argues that the levy, introduced by the chancellor in the budget , will be undermined by flawed analysis of its impact.
  • (17) Flaws in the design, execution and analysis of randomized clinical trials have been eliminated gradually over the past 35 years.
  • (18) A report released on Wednesday said Prevent was badly flawed , potentially counterproductive and risked trampling on the basic rights of young Muslims.
  • (19) A flawed heroine of the anti-apartheid struggle, she is unlikely to keep a low profile in the coming days or to bite her lip if she believes Mandela's memory is being betrayed.
  • (20) Considerable scholarly exertion has gone into describing the flaws in each count.

Foible


Definition:

  • (a.) Weak; feeble.
  • (n.) A moral weakness; a failing; a weak point; a frailty.
  • (n.) The half of a sword blade or foil blade nearest the point; -- opposed to forte.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Many of the patients anthropomorphise the seal, enjoy pretending that it is a real, living creature, with all the associated foibles.
  • (2) This week's edition of the FT's How to Spend It, suggests some Christmas foibles – £625 gloves, £705 Black Amber perfume, a £10,000 Boodles bangle.
  • (3) We're given a vivid description, details and foibles, before the town is populated with a cast of characters to rival any soap opera.
  • (4) If the mot juste was always a priority – "I suppose we all have our foibles.
  • (5) The sharp-witted late-night TV star, who regularly skewers the foibles of other celebrities, found himself on the end of the same treatment after being at the centre of a bizarre blackmail plot over the sexual affairs he had with younger female staff members.
  • (6) Children and their services have been prey to causes célèbres, fashion and the exaggerated fads and foibles of the media and politicians; they have thrived best when society and their carers were tolerant, and loving, sought good qualities to augment, not evil to exorcise, and succeeded in balancing structure and control with flexibility and freedom to grow.
  • (7) While cables exposing the foibles of Pakistan's civilian leaders triggered a media feeding frenzy, the press largely ignored revelations that cast the powerful military in a bad light, including its alleged support for Islamist extremist groups such as the Taliban.
  • (8) This is not about the exposure of one man's alleged foibles.
  • (9) We tend not to pin that badge on Ukip because of a paradoxical foible of Britishness that makes imagined immunity from aggressive identity politics a point of national pride.
  • (10) I'm afraid I didn't enjoy either Django Unchained or Inglourious Basterds – they were too self-reverential for my taste – but, as a writer, nobody in the world has a better ear for the foibles and vulnerabilities of his bad guys than Tarantino.
  • (11) Gray was as funny and vicious about his own haplessness as he was about the foibles of others.
  • (12) WS: That Bafta routine of yours in the show was the crux for me – a perfect exemplar of your character’s foibles, because the ambiguity is absolute: Does he care about not winning one or not?
  • (13) By contrast, this collection – which will be available online immediately and in shops in July – celebrated British foibles and eccentricities, in the animal-motif knitwear and eclectic mix of town and country fabrics.
  • (14) The well done steak is not simply a personal foible, like preferring pepperoni pizza to a margarita.
  • (15) And, for all his foibles, Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter is a man you'd follow, too.
  • (16) This essay on the last years of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's life exhibits all of Sebald's strengths as a writer – and all of his strange, gnomic, secretive foibles.
  • (17) For example, I've never heard him acknowledge that, in joking about Georgina Sachs's sexual foibles and menstrual cycle , he was demeaning to her.
  • (18) Over the years, scrutiny of Westminster has gradually come to rest on personal foibles, grudges and coups both real and imaginary - a kind of higher office-politics.
  • (19) The emphasis was always on the comedy, the foibles and peccadilloes of the characters, a gentle cynicism about the ways of the world, a joy in puns, a love of irritating footnotes, a relish for the bathetic puncturing of the bombastic – and above all an irrepressible and infectious silliness.
  • (20) None of us is free of foibles and peculiarities that the patient notices sooner or later.