What's the difference between gaffe and mistake?

Gaffe


Definition:

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.

Mistake


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make or form amiss; to spoil in making.
  • (v. t.) To take or choose wrongly.
  • (v. t.) To take in a wrong sense; to misunderstand misapprehend, or misconceive; as, to mistake a remark; to mistake one's meaning.
  • (v. t.) To substitute in thought or perception; as, to mistake one person for another.
  • (v. t.) To have a wrong idea of in respect of character, qualities, etc.; to misjudge.
  • (v. i.) To err in knowledge, perception, opinion, or judgment; to commit an unintentional error.
  • (n.) An apprehending wrongly; a misconception; a misunderstanding; a fault in opinion or judgment; an unintentional error of conduct.
  • (n.) Misconception, error, which when non-negligent may be ground for rescinding a contract, or for refusing to perform it.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Based upon the analysis of 1015 case records of patients, aged 16-70, with different hip joint pathology types, carried out during 1985-1990, there were revealed mistakes and complications after reconstructive-restorative operations.
  • (2) But to treat a mistake as an automatic disqualification for advancement – even as heinous a mistake as presiding over a botched operation that resulted in the killing of an innocent man – could be depriving organisations, and the country, of leaders who have been tested and will not make the same mistake again.
  • (3) It's a mistake to say Etonians are as they are because of their families.
  • (4) Conservationists have warned that they can affect fish growth and persist in the guts of mussels and fish that mistake them for food.
  • (5) After trading mistakes, Wawrinka got lucky at 30-30, mishitting a service return and fooling Djokovic.
  • (6) Masutha said the parole board had made a mistake when they approved Pistorius for early release, but his intervention has been widely criticised by legal experts.
  • (7) After winning his prize, Malcolm Turnbull must learn from Abbott's mistakes Read more Abbott appointed Warren Mundine to head his hand picked advisory council on Indigenous affairs.
  • (8) BUSH ON IRAQ TONIGHT: Mr President, if I can move on to the question of Iraq, when we last spoke before the Iraq war, I asked you about Saddam Hussein and you said this, and I quote: "He harbours and develops weapons of mass destruction, make no mistake about it."
  • (9) I believe Flower when he promises he would not repeat his mistake.
  • (10) He admitted to "very serious mistakes", highlighting problems with the party's channels of communication.
  • (11) But Wawrinka, who seemed to be flexing his knee a moment ago, is making more mistakes.
  • (12) "Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we've made some mistakes.
  • (13) The most common provoking factor in case of status and series were medication mistakes.
  • (14) The UN already made a mistake, they broke their own rule.
  • (15) Make no mistake about who the chief beneficiaries are.
  • (16) He added that the appearance this week on Libyan television of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi showed it had been a mistake by the Scottish justice minister to release him on compassionate grounds in 2009.
  • (17) Other parents are going to have to look into it, because I’ve made a big mistake moving him.
  • (18) Mistakes in maternity care account for a third of the £1bn a year the NHS has to spend settling medical negligence claims.
  • (19) These figures cast doubt on health secretary Jeremy Hunt's claim that the rise in A&E attendances was due to Labour's "historic mistake" in 2004 to let GPs no longer take responsibility for providing out-of-hours care.
  • (20) We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil.