What's the difference between gruff and mean?

Gruff


Definition:

  • (superl.) Of a rough or stern manner, voice, or countenance; sour; surly; severe; harsh.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A gruff intellectual alternately nicknamed “Mad Dog” and “the warrior monk,” Mattis is deeply respected in much of the foreign policy establishment, despite notably clashing with the Obama administration over his more hawkish views on Iran.
  • (2) Ricky Gervais: 'It’s always about people, it’s always about ego' Read more Take the film’s opening minute, in which gruff US comedian Jim Norton cameos as an absurdly camp male prostitute eager to offer radio journalist Frank Bonneville (Eric Bana) a “freebie”.
  • (3) I still am.” For many Republican primary voters, the question is whether the unassuming if somewhat gruff Paul – who insisted on no mayo in the ham and cheese sandwich he ordered for lunch – ever was particularly interesting, or if voters were only attracted to the idiosyncratic, 21st-century libertarianism he expounds.
  • (4) At the booth in between the never-was of Windsor and the has-been of Detroit, the officer I happened to draw had a gruff belly and the mysterious air of intentional inscrutability, like a troll under a bridge in a fairytale.
  • (5) The then manager was Walter Smith, a gruff but dignified Scot who had enjoyed considerable success at Rangers a decade earlier.
  • (6) Ingham, whose gruffness camouflages an intellect of silken agility, was addressing the specific question of his boss’s public image, and asking, by implication, if the Iron Lady could – well – melt, just a little.
  • (7) The film critic, who says Statham's name with an approximation of his low, gruff cockney, likes the chance the actor took with Hummingbird and also admires his 2011 film Blitz , co-starring Paddy Considine.
  • (8) Many had come for the first time to witness the much-vaunted oratorical skills of France’s youngest MP – and to see how she compared to her grandfather, the gruff former paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the Front National in 1972 and led it to become the most successful far-right party in western Europe.
  • (9) Get the metal pan!” Martin jokes, aping the Hollywood convention of a gruff doctor dropping each slug into a brass surgical tray with a solid “plink”.
  • (10) Rajapaksa's folksy, gruff bonhomie and his canny direction of development funds to the countryside has paid dividends at successive polls.
  • (11) His manner was often gruff and rude, even to those he liked: Isabella Blow, (pictured right with McQueen) who was broke when she bought his entire first collection and had to pay for it in installments, told me once how he used to march her to the cashpoint every week to get £50 out.
  • (12) Many of them were adapted for television or made into feature films; the Wexford books in particular were an enormous success on TV, with the actor George Baker playing Wexford as a big, gruff, rural policeman, solving crime in the fictional Sussex town of Kingsmarkham.
  • (13) But his less enthusiastic answer about Bannon comes amid reports of infighting in the Trump White House, all of which place the gruff, irascible Bannon at the center.
  • (14) Jenkins is small, but she has a surprisingly gruff voice, rising to a growl when she is annoyed.
  • (15) "I'm extremely well," he says with jovial gruffness.
  • (16) Luther starts in the UK on Tuesday, 9pm, BBC1 LUTHER: THE SERIES THREE LINEUP John Luther Gruff of voice, red of eye, natty of coat, the maverick DCI is good at solving crime, bad at life.
  • (17) His voice sounded gruff, his eyes still fixed on my breasts as he continued the fierce stroking and caressing.
  • (18) The White House did not announce the meeting until late on Thursday, prompting a gruff complaint from Beijing, in what has become something of a diplomatic ritual whenever Obama meets the exiled Buddhist monk.
  • (19) Tens of thousands of west of Scotland men derived a gruff pride in working hard for their money and providing food and shelter for their families.
  • (20) The show has made a star of one year 9 boy, 13-year-old Ryan Ward, a gruff-voiced, latte-drinking philosopher who wants to be a firefighter, a police officer or an actor.

Mean


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To have in the mind, as a purpose, intention, etc.; to intend; to purpose; to design; as, what do you mean to do ?
  • (v. t.) To signify; to indicate; to import; to denote.
  • (v. i.) To have a purpose or intention.
  • (superl.) Destitute of distinction or eminence; common; low; vulgar; humble.
  • (superl.) Wanting dignity of mind; low-minded; base; destitute of honor; spiritless; as, a mean motive.
  • (superl.) Of little value or account; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.
  • (superl.) Of poor quality; as, mean fare.
  • (superl.) Penurious; stingy; close-fisted; illiberal; as, mean hospitality.
  • (a.) Occupying a middle position; middle; being about midway between extremes.
  • (a.) Intermediate in excellence of any kind.
  • (a.) Average; having an intermediate value between two extremes, or between the several successive values of a variable quantity during one cycle of variation; as, mean distance; mean motion; mean solar day.
  • (n.) That which is mean, or intermediate, between two extremes of place, time, or number; the middle point or place; middle rate or degree; mediocrity; medium; absence of extremes or excess; moderation; measure.
  • (n.) A quantity having an intermediate value between several others, from which it is derived, and of which it expresses the resultant value; usually, unless otherwise specified, it is the simple average, formed by adding the quantities together and dividing by their number, which is called an arithmetical mean. A geometrical mean is the square root of the product of the quantities.
  • (n.) That through which, or by the help of which, an end is attained; something tending to an object desired; intermediate agency or measure; necessary condition or coagent; instrument.
  • (n.) Hence: Resources; property, revenue, or the like, considered as the condition of easy livelihood, or an instrumentality at command for effecting any purpose; disposable force or substance.
  • (n.) A part, whether alto or tenor, intermediate between the soprano and base; a middle part.
  • (n.) Meantime; meanwhile.
  • (n.) A mediator; a go-between.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Thirty-two patients (10 male, 22 female; age 37-82 years) undergoing maintenance haemodialysis or haemofiltration were studied by means of Holter device capable of simultaneously analysing rhythm and ST-changes in three leads.
  • (2) Age difference did not affect the mean dose-effect response.
  • (3) Although the mean values for all hemodynamic variables between the two placebo periods were minimally changed, the differences in individual patients were striking.
  • (4) Propranolol resulted in a significantly lower mean hourly, mean 24 h and minimum heart rate.
  • (5) Which means Seattle can't give Jones room to make 13-yard catches as they just did.
  • (6) A group I subset (six animals), for which predominant cultivable microbiota was described, had a mean GI of 2.4.
  • (7) Then the esophagogastric variceal network was thrombosed by means of a catheter introduced during laparotomy, which created a portoazygos disconnection.
  • (8) The intrauterine mean active pressure (MAP) in the nulliparous group was 1.51 kPa (SD 0.45) in the first stage and 2.71 kPa (SD 0.77) in the second stage.
  • (9) In the group of high myopia (over 20 D), the mean correction was 13.4 D. In the group with refraction between 0 and 6 D, 88% of the eyes treated had attained a correction between -1 and +1 D 3 months postoperatively.
  • (10) That means deciding what job they’d like to have and outlining the steps they’ll need to take to achieve it.
  • (11) The difference in BP between a hospital casual reading and the mean 24 hour ambulatory reading was reduced only by atenolol.
  • (12) Until the 1960's there was great confusion, both within and between countries, on the meaning of diagnostic terms such as emphysema, asthma, and chronic brochitis.
  • (13) There were 12 males, 6 females, with mean age of 55.1 yrs (range 39-77 yrs).
  • (14) Measurement of urinary GGT levels represents a means by which proximal tubular disease in equidae could be diagnosed in its developmental stages.
  • (15) However, there was no statistically significant difference in mean areas under the LH and FSH curves in the GnRH-treated groups.
  • (16) Although lorazepam and haloperidol produced an equivalent mean decrease in aggression, significantly more subjects who received lorazepam had a greater decrease in aggression ratings than haloperidol recipients; this effect was independent of sedation.
  • (17) The mean and median values in the nondiabetic group are higher than in previously published reports.
  • (18) The way we are going to pay for that is by making the rules the same for people who go into care homes as for people who get care at their home, and by means-testing the winter fuel payment, which currently isn’t.” Hunt said the plan showed the Conservatives were capable of making difficult choices.
  • (19) Taken together these results are consistent with the view that primary CTL, as well as long term cloned CTL cell lines, exercise their cytolytic activity by means of perforin.
  • (20) Evidence is presented in support of the hypothesis that fresh bat guano serves as a means of pathogenic fungi dissemination in caves.