What's the difference between forgiving and merciful?
Forgiving
Definition:
(p. pr. & vb. n.) of Forgive
(a.) Disposed to forgive; inclined to overlook offenses; mild; merciful; compassionate; placable; as, a forgiving temper.
Example Sentences:
(1) One of the most interesting aspects of the shadow cabinet elections, not always readily interpreted because of the bizarre process of alliances of convenience, is whether his colleagues are ready to forgive and forget his long years as Brown's representative on earth.
(2) In 1999, Kamprad admitted his past involvement with Nazism in a book about his life and asked for forgiveness for his "stupidity."
(3) Perhaps he is instinctively more forgiving about avoiding tax, which some right-wingers always regard as an indecent affront, than the free use of public funds.
(4) He argues that whenever you have periods of crazy expansion of virtual credit, like today, you either have to have a safety valve of forgiveness, like in Mesopotamia where you wiped the tablets clean every seven years, or you have an outbreak of social violence so intense you rip society apart.
(5) The euro elite insists it is representing the interests of Portuguese or Irish taxpayers who have to pick up the bill for bailing out the feckless Greeks – or will be enraged by any debt forgiveness when they have been forced to swallow similar medicine.
(6) But Blair's address - "history will forgive us" - was a dubious exercise in group therapy: the cheers smacked of pathetic gratitude, as he piously pardoned the legislators, as well as himself, for the catastrophe of Iraq.
(7) Please, forgive me,” Choi Soon-sil, a cult leader’s daughter with a decades-long connection to Park, said through tears inside the Seoul prosecutor’s building, according to Yonhap news agency.
(8) Resisting dictatorships is more worthwhile than accepting them and thinking things will change by themselves.” Asked if the suffering for a majority of South Sudanese citizens could be stopped if Machar and his colleagues gave up the fight, the rebel leader says “giving up would be irresponsible” and that “history would not forgive him” for it.
(9) Women are forgiving if you can make it seem like this,” Rock Hard writes.
(10) I believe this has made it more possible to forgive.
(11) But we’ll know if things have changed when we can walk down the street after dark without being stopped.” Ron McBride, 48, was more forgiving.
(12) And it has proved too forgiving of welfare abuse, too obsessed with universal human rights, and too enthusiastic about immigration.
(13) Sometimes the public’s legitimate fears are exposed: in Colombia there’s no doubt the public felt uneasy about forgiving Farc for its bloody violence.
(14) The hardest thing is forgiving yourself, but it is necessary to do that.” As for the rest of the world and its concerns, Baez is willing to offer her personal support to causes that are particularly close to her heart, most notably the campaign against the death penalty in the United States.
(15) Yet in the wake of the second world war, West Germany managed to secure 15bn deutschmarks of debt forgiveness, in what became known as the London agreement.
(16) "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but does Crystal Palace-Spurs not count as a London derby?"
(17) When Margaret Thatcher died in April 2013, the Sheffield Star led with the headline: “We Will Never Forgive Her” .
(18) Both forgiveness and justice were related but distinct constructs.
(19) But the journalist Alexander Chancellor, a friend since Cambridge, agrees with Stoppard that despite sometimes sounding "over censorious, he is actually incredibly warm hearted and very forgiving.
(20) In return, the survivors were expected to offer forgiveness and the courts to impose lesser sentences, often resulting in immediate release from prison.
Merciful
Definition:
(a.) Full of mercy; having or exercising mercy; disposed to pity and spare offenders; unwilling to punish.
(a.) Unwilling to give pain; compassionate.
Example Sentences:
(1) The law and justice minister, Anisul Huq, said the 73-year-old leader was hanged after he refused to seek mercy from the country’s president.
(2) But if May rushes headlong into a panicked triggering of article 50 without a clear idea of what she wants out of negotiations, she will have left us at the mercy of 27 countries who have heard little but table-thumping and empty threats from ministers.
(3) He called for care for the environment to be added to the seven spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Gospel that the faithful are asked to perform throughout the pope’s year of mercy in 2016.
(4) But Ruby Tweedie, another local resident, said: "There have been so many doubts about his guilt that it's only fair that the man, who has only a few months to live, should be shown mercy."
(5) Constant ribbing about his private life was compromising Deayton's position as the show's "holier-than-thou" host, who showed no mercy towards politicians or celebrities caught in a similar position, the corporation added.
(6) The 70-year-old describes a life of comfortable detachment from mainstream society, but with long periods in which he and his 74-year-old wife, Shin-yeol, are at the mercy of the elements.
(7) We're kind of at Mother Nature's mercy at this point," said Tom Kruschke, another fire department spokesman .
(8) Without him, we were at the mercy of increasingly nervous investors, and our Hollywood film-making future hung in the balance.
(9) Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies.
(10) The mayor is a good person, but no one invited him, certainly not officially … The pope was furious.” While the prank provided fodder to critics of the mayor, it also underscored a more serious issue between the Vatican and Rome just a few months ahead of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December.
(11) The only mercy was they would have known little about it.
(12) After Hollande spent two hours on French radio in a patent relaunch of his presidency, a film producer announced that a biopic of Trierweiler’s revenge memoir, Merci Pour Ce Moment (Thank You For This Moment), is now in the works.
(13) Hunt replied: "Merci hopefully when consultation over we can have coffee like old days!"
(14) "The legal system has lost all sense of mercy and justice and it has been replaced with punitiveness and vindictiveness," Stinebrickner-Kauffman told Mail Online .
(15) If Whittingdale had any honour, any mercy, and any basic human decency, he would murder David Attenborough himself today, in his bed, to spare him any further suffering.
(16) It was not something that was talked about.” Thomson added: “It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised I quite simply couldn’t escape – because he was stronger than me, and there was no sense even initially of any sexual desire from him, which I suppose, looking back, again I find odd.” The MP said she had felt “absolutely numbed” and ashamed but told no one about the incident.
(17) Several survivors and family members of the victims who were flown to the US testified this week , and one cursed Bales for attacking villagers as some slept and others screamed for mercy.
(18) This meant that if the rebels started abusing people, the Misca would withdraw, leaving the civilian population at their mercy.
(19) Sitting in a side street listening to the sound of loud blasts and gunfire emanating from Nariman House, Rakash Bhaud, the local leader of the far-right Hindu party Shiv Sena, blamed the central government for the failures that, he said, had left them at the mercy of Pakistan-backed terrorists.
(20) More emphasis on mercy is needed in this case, surely, and less on killing.