What's the difference between foolish and gullible?

Foolish


Definition:

  • (a.) Marked with, or exhibiting, folly; void of understanding; weak in intellect; without judgment or discretion; silly; unwise.
  • (a.) Such as a fool would do; proceeding from weakness of mind or silliness; exhibiting a want of judgment or discretion; as, a foolish act.
  • (a.) Absurd; ridiculous; despicable; contemptible.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) So, logic would dictate that if Greeks are genuinely in favour of reform – and opinion polls have consistently shown wide support for many of the structural changes needed – they would be foolish to give these two parties another chance.
  • (2) It would be foolish to bet that Saudi Arabia will exist in its current form a generation from now.” Memories of how the Saudis and Opec deliberately triggered an economic crisis in the west in retaliation for US aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war still rankle.
  • (3) That's foolish, because Real Madrid rarely look more uncomfortable than at set pieces.
  • (4) "We regret that Congress was forced to waste its time voting on a foolish bill that was premised entirely on false claims and ignorance," David Jenkins, an REP official, said in a statement.
  • (5) Shorten said while Hicks was “foolish to get caught up in the Afghanistan conflict” the court decision showed an injustice.
  • (6) Many commentators considered the suggestion merely foolish, but computer hackers issued death threats against her and her children, which she promptly posted on Twitter, along with the defiant message: "Get stuffed, losers.
  • (7) And it means that if Labour were to win, Mr Brown would be very foolish, indeed downright wrong, to move Mr Darling.
  • (8) "It was a certain kind of titillation the shop offered," the critic Matthew Collings has written, "sexual but also hopeless, destructive, foolish, funny, sad."
  • (9) Describing the moment McKellen knocked on his dressing room door he said: “I ushered him in nervously, expecting notes for my poor performance or indiscipline – I was a foolish, naughty young actor.
  • (10) But what people did when they were young and foolish, or even when they were not yet public figures, is not always the same.
  • (11) While we have this, it would be foolish to pursue a policy of still constraining resources in the acute sector.
  • (12) All three echoed remarks made recently by the Bank’s governor, Mark Carney, who said it would be “foolish” to cut rates in response to a temporary fall in inflation.
  • (13) Since the initially peaceful demonstrations against his regime began more than three years ago, he has proved himself, by turns, foolish, craven and vicious.
  • (14) In a high-risk, 65-minute speech in Manchester delivered without notes, and 20 minutes longer than he intended, Miliband tried to take the mantle of the 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli's one nation, pointedly grabbing the territory and language of the centre ground which he believes David Cameron has foolishly vacated.
  • (15) But one backbencher, West Australian Liberal Dennis Jensen , has said it is foolish to set up a $20bn medical research fund at the same time as the government is cutting money from scientific agencies, including the CSIRO and the Australian Research Council.
  • (16) Donald Trump is too weak, too foolish and too chaotic to see beyond the immediate crises he has created.
  • (17) Here, too, Capote displayed uncanny journalistic skills, capturing even the most languid and enigmatic of subjects – Brando in his pomp – and eliciting the kinds of confidences that left the actor reflecting ruefully on his "unutterable foolishness".
  • (18) They privately acknowledge they were foolish in taking the bait, but argue they have broken no rules since they were offered no jobs, and therefore have no commercial interests to declare in the MPs' register.
  • (19) "Hopefully, the lesson is to stop this foolish childishness," McCain said Thursday on CNN.
  • (20) The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes.” As for the social conditions that obtain: “It is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish.” Looking back on my political activism of the 1970s and 80s, there was a lot of refusing to accept existing conditions on the basis that they were “wrong and foolish”.

Gullible


Definition:

  • (a.) Easily gulled; that may be duped.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) These private providers take more than a fifth of fees in profit and spend even more on marketing to cover up the poor quality of what they are offering – subprime degrees not worth the paper they are printed on being sold to very young, very gullible consumers .
  • (2) As a consequence, he's the go-to guy for a scathing quote on dissembling theologies and their gullible believers.
  • (3) Bailey hits back, telling Russell that he is displaying "a degree of gullibility" that is "not consistent with your role".
  • (4) Generally, the victim never reports that they have been a victim of fraud to the police because they are too ashamed of their own gullibility.
  • (5) It's in this "gap" that W1A 's comedy is located, but it's also where many real-life professionals ply their trade, bamboozling the gullible and the desperate with their bewitching neologisms, barmy suggestions and bizarre leadership tests.
  • (6) Remember you're human after all While much of the above are technical solutions to prevent you being hacked and scammed, hacking done well is really the skill of tricking human beings, not computers, by preying on their gullibility, taking advantage of our trust, greed or altruistic impulses.
  • (7) And what was this intended to prove (other than, perhaps, some nebulous point about the media’s gullibility )?
  • (8) I'm not advocating dumb gullibility, but it is has always amused me that those who instinctively dislike Apple for being apparently cool, trendy, design-fixated and so on, are the ones who are actually so damned cool and so damned sensitive to stylistic nuance that they can't bear to celebrate or recognise obvious class, beauty and desire.
  • (9) • Russell was also accused of "a degree of gullibility" , after saying he still believed the investment banks advising the government had given good advice.
  • (10) Internally, however, they are frightened, timid, self-doubting, gullible, inconsiderate, vulnerable to erotomania, and cognitively unable to grasp the totality of actual events.
  • (11) You can’t blame Puerto Rican politicians for thinking that they can keep their constituents in the dark: Puerto Rico’s political history is all about assuming that we Puerto Ricans are gullible and foolish.
  • (12) There appears to be an unlimited supply of gullible celebrities willing to deal with the Sunday newspaper's undercover reporter: earlier this month he caught the snooker player John Higgins allegedly offering to throw matches for money.
  • (13) I hope Cameron is not going to be as gullible to swallow bland assurances by [president) Dmitry Medvedev and [prime minister] Vladimir Putin or be so eager to please that he fails to raise the important human rights abuses in relation to Magnitsky and [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky."
  • (14) "I was joking," he says, rolling his eyes at my gullibility.
  • (15) Granted, the new Newsweek is hoping to pass itself off as the old and real Newsweek, but, really, that is less its fault than the fault of the gullible.
  • (16) As for Bissinger, he is now beating his chest about his own pathetic gullibility, in a way that curiously seems to mirror the grand mea culpa that Armstrong will perform on Oprah.
  • (17) We have already agreed that blame game is widely spread encompassing Greenspan, gullible international governments, inadequate regulation resulting in overindulgence by the consumer and business in terms of over-borrowing," Buik said.
  • (18) There is evidence that Philip Hammond, the least gullible of defence secretaries, is starting to cleanse the Augean stables of defence spending.
  • (19) They were so wrapped up in their righteousness that they did not notice that the state was thanking them for their gullibility and seizing the chance to lock down and shut up.
  • (20) It turns out that the joke is enough to support not just a movie but an entire industry, because tired parents are everywhere now, and they've never been more anxious… or gullible.

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