What's the difference between foolish and unwise?

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”.

Unwise


Definition:

  • (a.) Not wise; defective in wisdom; injudicious; indiscreet; foolish; as, an unwise man; unwise kings; unwise measures.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Jeremain Lens, signed from Dynamo Kyiv, was fortunate to escape dismissal for a second yellow card, while Yann M’Vila, on loan from Rubin Kazan, followed his headbutt in the reserves by raising arms to Graham Dorrans during an unpunished, but unwise, bout of push ’n’ shove.
  • (2) It was considered unwise to treat amenorrhea with combined estrogens and progestagens because metrorrhagia ensued.
  • (3) Some of the ones they've sent to the European parliament, one of them got sent to prison , others had to send back a lot of money because they all believed what they were saying about the Brussels gravy train and rather unwisely tried to take advantage of it.
  • (4) Mentioning those values may have been deemed unwise, given the hyper-secularised culture of the new Länder .
  • (5) There is serious concern that some physicians may be unwisely abandoning well tested treatment methods because of the premature dissemination of early results of some trials.
  • (6) For the purpose of developmental evaluation of growing children and the nutritional assessment of individuals or populations, reliance on current North American standards for size, maturational timing, body fatness or osseous development may be unwise not only with respect to various African, Asiatic and Pacific populations but often with respect to adults and children in North America.
  • (7) The ACF’s chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, said: “The last federal budget was widely seen as unfair and unwise, cutting funding for science and environment.
  • (8) Since approximately half of the persons with contact allergy to neomycin will also react to gentamicin, it seems unwise to treat such patients with other intravenous aminoglycosides that are closely related chemically.
  • (9) Stephen King, the chief global economist at HSBC, the former Goldman Sachs economist Gavyn Davies and Roger Farmer, a professor of economics at the University of California, told MPs on the Treasury select committee that it would be unwise to embark on a large-scale spending spree to boost growth while government debt remained high.
  • (10) However, because of the biases associated with screening it would be unwise to advocate a nationwide programme until the results of the controlled trials now in progress are available.
  • (11) We believe it is unwise to discharge asthmatics from hospital until the diurnal variation in their peak flow is below 20%.
  • (12) David Davis, the leading Conservative rightwing MP, said it was unwise to build a policy on a single case, but claimed that as many as one or two in 100 parents were having an extra child due to the prospect of child benefit.
  • (13) We live in an age of confident political predictions that are repeatedly proven to be unwise, but this was an outcome that was never in serious doubt.
  • (14) However, it appears unwise to categorically refute the repetition of congenital toxoplasmosis in siblings.
  • (15) This may never happen, but it would be unwise to bet that way.
  • (16) He did a good job of helping Manchester City and Sheffield United out of the doldrums, but perhaps unwisely left the former when a return to Everton became possible, explaining at the time that City felt like an affair whereas Everton was a marriage.
  • (17) Resolution is needed of the non-health-related problems--including confidentiality and the possible loss of job, insurance, and friends--that make it difficult or unwise to advocate widespread screening for antibody to the AIDS virus at this point.
  • (18) Banks said May was unwise to reject the help offered by Farage, especially given his close relationship with Bannon, who ran the rightwing Breitbart news website before going to work for Trump.
  • (19) But it would be unwise for Labour's stance on the government's proposals to suggest we are conceding rather than contesting the reform territory.
  • (20) Drawing a link with DPT was especially unwise because Osborne had previously promised the new measure would force technology companies to unwind their complex tax structures which “ abuse the trust of the British people ”.

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