What's the difference between foolish and preposterous?

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”.

Preposterous


Definition:

  • (a.) Having that first which ought to be last; inverted in order.
  • (a.) Contrary to nature or reason; not adapted to the end; utterly and glaringly foolish; unreasonably absurd; perverted.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Reading these latest statistics, it’s crucial that our generation – millennials, Gen Y, whatever we want to call ourselves – abandons this preposterous narrative.
  • (2) You could understand why the Met was frantic to find who had stabbed Rachel Nickell 49 times on Wimbledon Common while her screaming child looked on, but the case against Stagg was preposterous.
  • (3) Preposterous claims by ministers that cutting tax credits means “cultural change” for people already in work show how far this is from being the “workers’ party”.
  • (4) The league looks more preposterous still, however, if you simply ignore Muresul Deva for a moment.
  • (5) China's foreign ministry called the allegations preposterous and accused the US of double standards.
  • (6) So I said: "Isn't it preposterous that you're so cheap?"
  • (7) Most preposterous has been the British prime minister David Cameron lecturing Greeks on their responsibilities from outside the eurozone .
  • (8) This is why, preposterously, America is able to confirm plans to send four shiny F-16 fighter jets to Egyptian military on Thursday, while still talking democracy and inclusion for Egypt's transitional process.
  • (9) "It is perplexing and preposterous to hear human rights complaints from the US, where torture and kidnapping are legal in the 21st century."
  • (10) But the State Department's indignation over the leaks of allegedly valuable secrets was, and remains, preposterous.
  • (11) There's the pot that presidential hopefuls admit to having smoked in a youthful-experiment-type way, and there's the pot criminals currently serving life sentences under preposterous three strikes legislation were caught with.
  • (12) In common usage, “myth” is at best the word we use to refer to amusingly preposterous urban legends – tales about albino alligators in the Manhattan sewers or the Holy Grail’s hiding place under the floor of a Paris shopping mall.
  • (13) What happens, we’ve seen as a case study, is what happened in Greece.” He added: “I think she was suggesting if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party got the chance to impose its fiscal policies on the United Kingdom that is a very real threat.” A spokesman for Corbyn described the claims as “preposterous”.
  • (14) The notion that it might start with another body on another beach seemed preposterous if not a little cheapening of what went before.
  • (15) That the LMA has sought to criticise the club for the timing of the report to the FA is preposterous, because the offensive communications have been in the knowledge and possession of the LMA for many months.
  • (16) Miliband, as I observed some time ago in a piece for ConservativeHome , should have dismissed as a preposterous anachronism the Tory attack on the trade union link.
  • (17) A nurse who faces being struck off over a botched Ebola screening at Heathrow airport has said it is “preposterous” that she would have concealed knowledge that Pauline Cafferkey was unwell.
  • (18) The size of the hole that Iran is in,” Szubin said, “we’re talking about a hole that could be described in one sense as a $200bn hole, which are the losses that we assess they’ve suffered since 2012 due to sanctions.” However the representatives had little patience for many of Blinken’s arguments, with Democrat Brad Sherman saying it was “preposterous” to believe Iran would adhere to a deal.
  • (19) Barroso's comments provoked a furious response from senior SNP figures, who said his views were "pretty preposterous" and based on a false comparison.
  • (20) Taking aim at a "preposterously over-regulated system," Johnson also claims that "bureaucracy and politial correctness is gradually asphyxiating the BBC".

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