What's the difference between gaff and hoax?

Gaff


Definition:

  • (n.) A barbed spear or a hook with a handle, used by fishermen in securing heavy fish.
  • (n.) The spar upon which the upper edge of a fore-and-aft sail is extended.
  • (n.) Same as Gaffle, 1.
  • (v. t.) To strike with a gaff or barbed spear; to secure by means of a gaff; as, to gaff a salmon.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Dedicate it to the off-the-cuff remark – the gaffe, even – which averts a war.
  • (2) Every time he opened his mouth he created another gaffe," he said.
  • (3) This is, admittedly, a difficult area for David Cameron, who, when questioned by David Letterman on US TV in 2012, was unable to say that Magna Carta simply meant great charter, but perhaps we should overlook this fairly amazing gaffe (for an Oxford-educated prime minister) and encourage him to inaugurate a national movement of political renewal with the charter as the context and inspiration.
  • (4) Mitt Romney's historic gaffe caught on video – published, with great timing, by the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine – in which he said that his campaign was writing off 47% of American voters since they "depended on government" handouts, was committed in an equally significant manner, as he delivered the remarks to a closed group of potential major donors in Florida.
  • (5) There is strikingly little support for the Republican contender whose gaffe-prone visit to Europe in July won him few friends and who regularly turns European welfarism and "entitlement societies" into points of mockery in his campaign speeches.
  • (6) Following controversy over the candidate's comments on the preparedness of London to host the Olympic Games, his aides will be anxious to avoid further gaffes.
  • (7) Democrats are planning to highlight what they see as the Republican party’s unpalatable views on immigration over the weekend, sending “trackers” to monitor the event in search of further gaffes from potential candidates.
  • (8) The comedy, in which she stars as gaffe-prone vice-president Selina Meyer, has been seen as a personal triumph for Louis-Dreyfus, as well as a stateside vindication for the comic method of its creator, Armando Iannucci .
  • (9) Roe worried about “all these gaffes” that Biden made as well as whether the 72-year-old had the necessary energy to serve in the Oval Office.
  • (10) Photograph: Barcroft Media Newsnight's new editor, former Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz, also has form with the comic sidestep after his Twitter "snoring, boring" gaffe about Rachel Reeves.
  • (11) Campaigning before the June election Demirtaş had been full of mischief, needling Erdoğan, making fun of the AKP’s gaffes.
  • (12) Gaffes are a feature of politicians and the electoral process, not a bug.
  • (13) In one high-profile gaffe, the expertise of one member of Macierewicz’s commission was revealed to have been based upon experience of constructing model aircraft, sitting in a fighter jet’s cockpit during an air show, and observing plane wings while looking out of a passenger window.
  • (14) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
  • (15) You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Sean Spicer apologizes for 'even Hitler didn't use chemical weapons' gaffe Read more Spicer’s assertion during the Jewish holiday of Passover provoked instant outrage on social media and from some Holocaust memorial groups, who accused him of minimising Hitler’s crimes.
  • (16) This week the rapper said his gaffe at the MTV Video Music awards in 2009 was "bigger ... than the Bush moment".
  • (17) Clinton, while trotting out her plan on college affordability , has been robust in her attacks on Republican candidates of late – speaking out against gaffes on women’s reproductive rights from Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
  • (18) The editor's hope is that there will be "a story", perhaps a new policy initiative but, better still, a "gaffe".
  • (19) If it isn’t frontbench gaffes, it’s the perceived lack of commitment to the armed forces or armed police officers distracting from government blunders.
  • (20) Following a gaffe-strewn visit to Britain , where he queried the Olympic host's fitness to stage the Games, and after stirring controversy in Israel by calling Jerusalem the Israeli capital and seeming to back unilateral Israeli strikes against Iran , the Republican White House contender arrived on Monday in Poland, where he is to deliver a setpiece speech on democracy and freedom.

Hoax


Definition:

  • (n.) A deception for mockery or mischief; a deceptive trick or story; a practical joke.
  • (v. t.) To deceive by a story or a trick, for sport or mischief; to impose upon sportively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Despite reasonable evidence suggesting the plot letter is a hoax , it has sparked debate in the city, with far right groups looking to capitalise while some prominent Muslims claim the allegations are baseless and rooted in Islamophobia.
  • (2) Following the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance's Hoax of Hollywood conference in Tehran this week, it has been reported that Iran may "sue Hollywood" over what it considers to be unrealistic portrayals of the country in several films.
  • (3) The Syrian ambassador to France has denied resigning from her post claiming she was the victim of a hoax aimed at embarrassing her country.
  • (4) Here are three things you can do: • Use the corporation's online complaints form • Take the issue to the BBC Trust • Complain to Feedback on Radio 4 Otherwise, expect our bastion of editorial values to keep collaborating in the time-honoured tradition of hoaxing us on behalf of corporate money.
  • (5) Exxon’s beneficiaries in Congress include the Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe, who called global warming a hoax, and who has received $20,500 since 2007, according to the Dirty Energy Money database maintained by Oil Change International.
  • (6) It also offers advice on how to talk to your employer, as it’s common for abusers to bombard a target’s workplace with false accusations, hoax phone calls and other tactics designed to discredit them.
  • (7) During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Pruitt said he disagreed with Trump’s past statements that global warming is a hoax.
  • (8) But if the Gay Girl in Damascus is indeed a hoax, it is a fantastically elaborate one.
  • (9) Earlier this month the ANC said it wanted Twitter to take action after a hoax report of Mandela's death was widely distributed on the social network site.
  • (10) Man can’t change climate.” The quick thinking from Inhofe now leaves Wicker, the new chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as the only Republican to still embrace the entire idea of climate change as a hoax.
  • (11) We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here.
  • (12) She's learned from the Born This Way debacle Lady Gaga's head crudely plonked on the front of a motorbike was not what the world needed, and yet that's exactly what we got with 2011's Born This Way cover – an image so appallingly 80s-hair-metal and wildly out of step with the rest of the campaign's artwork that even her fans assumed it was some elaborate hoax sent to test them.
  • (13) On Monday a member of staff at the tourist centre had denied the disappearance was a hoax, telling Guardian Australia she “wished it was”.
  • (14) To justify their large advance they invented a story that Otto Skorzeny, the man who organised the ex-Nazi escape network Odessa, had financed the robbery, a hoax that Read only learned of when he went to Brazil to interview Biggs.
  • (15) Hillary’s health hoax Most of the recent flurry stems directly from InfoWars, a conspiracy-fueled political site run by shock jock Alex Jones that funds itself partly through the sale of supplies necessary for doomsday prepping such as bulk vitamins and a year’s worth of long-life food.
  • (16) Ostensibly signed by Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, it was aimed at getting recipients to take part in an online survey about the party and the future of the country whose spectacular banality suggests that the whole thing might be a hoax.
  • (17) Because they are determined to expose the nature of this total hoax of a Russia-Trump connection currently under investigation by the FBI.
  • (18) He has called climate change a “ bullshit ” hoax invented by the Chinese and has a history of conflict with Native American tribes over competition in casinos.
  • (19) They were victims of a swatting attack, a malicious form of hoax where special weapons and tactics (Swat) teams are called to a victim’s home under false pretenses, with potentially deadly results.
  • (20) He said his interaction with Amina was purely coincidental, "a major sock-puppet hoax crash[ing] into a major sock-puppet hoax."