What's the difference between hero and villain?

Hero


Definition:

  • (n.) An illustrious man, supposed to be exalted, after death, to a place among the gods; a demigod, as Hercules.
  • (n.) A man of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger, or fortitude in suffering; a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; hence, a great or illustrious person.
  • (n.) The principal personage in a poem, story, and the like, or the person who has the principal share in the transactions related; as Achilles in the Iliad, Ulysses in the Odyssey, and Aeneas in the Aeneid.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Mendl's candy colours contrast sharply with the gothic garb of our hero's enemies and the greys of the prison uniforms – as well as scenes showing the hotel later, in the 1960s, its opulence lost beneath a drab communist refurb.
  • (2) They'd started so well, too, winger Oreste Corbatta putting Argentina ahead after three minutes in the 1958 groups, but the 1954 hero Helmut Rahn scored twice in an eventual 3-1 win for West Germany.
  • (3) One of her heroes, one of her mentors was Saul Alinsky,” he said, referring to the radical community organiser whose book, Rules for Radicals, he claimed contains an acknowledgement of Lucifer.
  • (4) Maggie and Joe Forber win the 2013 Unsung Hero (es) of the Year award.
  • (5) In the wake of the horrors of the second world war it was the proudest gift to a land fit for heroes, delivered at a time when the national debt made our current crisis look like an embarrassing bar tab.
  • (6) "With the full backing of British Gymnastics, the trainers who helped take Smith and Tweddle to Olympic glory are ready to turn the nation's pop stars, actors, newsreaders and chefs into heroes of the high bars and titans of the tumble track," it added.
  • (7) The former Massachusetts governor, like many Republicans, expected the Trump campaign to implode last summer, after he insulted Mexicans and said Arizona senator and 2008 Republican nominee John McCain was not a “war hero” because “I like people who weren’t captured.” This year, days after Trump did not immediately disavow an expression of support from David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, Romney said one of his sons was driving him to an airport when he asked: “When the grandkids ask ‘What did you do to stop Donald Trump ?’ what are you going to say?’” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Romney launches extensive attack on Trump: ‘A genius he is not’ That, Romney said, was the final push.
  • (8) Dickens's last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend , has a mysterious hero, John Rokesmith, who turns out to be someone different from the person we were told he was.
  • (9) At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.
  • (10) Kafka's faceless and amoral heroes, on the other hand, inspire no sympathy at all.
  • (11) Thank God the heroes of SWAT-team prevented the worst.
  • (12) From campaigner to prisoner to President to global hero, Nelson Mandela will always be remembered for his dignity, integrity and his values of equality and justice.
  • (13) Northampton toiled manfully to seek a way back into the tie with Holmes, two-goal hero from the first match, making a number of threatening runs.
  • (14) So President Mujica may be thinking: "why not take the risk and embrace the possibility of becoming the first marijuana hero and the man who thwarted drug dealers?"
  • (15) André Villas-Boas Villas-Boas was only 33 when he won the Europa League with Porto Gianluca Vialli Sven-Göran Eriksson Pep Guardiola You got… Perfection You hero You star You've done very well there You've done well there You've done OK there Sorry to break it to you but that's a bad score Come on.
  • (16) "I saw Hutton in his prime; another time, another time," as his couplet about his cricketing hero, Sir Leonard Hutton, has it.
  • (17) What he liked best was to talk to the cricket pro, Bert Wensley, formerly of Sussex, about such heroes as Maurice Tate, Duleepsinhji and HT Bartlett, and to encourage Bert to enlarge on his reasons for describing Sir Home Gordon, Bart, the overlord of Sussex cricket, as a "shit" - the first time we heard that word.
  • (18) Seeing the performance later in Edinburgh, I was impressed by Briers' ability to encompass the hero's rage and madness.
  • (19) Reagan's youthful hero was FDR – another optimist, albeit a far steelier one –  who turned the federal government into the agent of recovery from the Great Depression and of victory in World War II.
  • (20) "The FA decision-makers can become the heroes that protected the national game.

Villain


Definition:

  • (n.) One who holds lands by a base, or servile, tenure, or in villenage; a feudal tenant of the lowest class, a bondman or servant.
  • (n.) A baseborn or clownish person; a boor.
  • (n.) A vile, wicked person; a man extremely depraved, and capable or guilty of great crimes; a deliberate scoundrel; a knave; a rascal; a scamp.
  • (a.) Villainous.
  • (v. t.) To debase; to degrade.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But I know the full story and it’s a bit different from what people see.” The full story is heavy on the extremes of emotion and as the man who took a stricken but much-loved club away from its community, Winkelman knows that his part is that of villain; the war of words will rumble on.
  • (2) They’re not moustache-twirling villains that are going, “ah ha ha that’s great”, they’re going: “You’re right.
  • (3) Society needs a villain and right now we’re convenient.” “ I will carefully admit there has been an awful lot of almonds planted that maybe shouldn’t have been because outside money came in and wanted to plant,” he says.
  • (4) Reith, “his dour handsome face scarred like that of a villain in a melodrama”, was “a strange shepherd for such a mixed, bohemian flock … he had under his aegis a bevy of ex-soldiers, ex-actors, ex-adventurers which … even a Dartmoor prison governor might have had difficulty in controlling”.
  • (5) The success of Capote paved the way for bigger and more nuanced parts for Hoffman, his turn as the villain in Mission: Impossible III (2006) notwithstanding.
  • (6) Maleficent, Disney's latest film out on 28 May, offers the untold back story of the villain from the 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty, with Jolie in the title role.
  • (7) When I was nine or 10 I leapt directly from Doctor Dolittle to Dr No, leaving behind all those stupid talking animals and free-falling into a far naughtier realm of suavely promiscuous government assassins, hot shell-diving beauties and villains with metal hands and messianic plans for humanity.
  • (8) And that’s what we do in drama and comedy: we create our own heroes and villains, so no one really gets hurt.
  • (9) You're a devious villain conducting the perfect crime, like the dashing guest star in the opening scene of a classic Columbo.
  • (10) These villains have limited aspirations, and the man in the white hat has a limited arsenal of era-appropriate weaponry: a gun, a bow and arrow, a few grenades, maybe even a tank.
  • (11) The people shaping the news require a very simple story – they have to be angels and villains.” John Stoltenberg is a gay-rights activist who lived with the feminist writer Andrea Dworkin until her death in 2005.
  • (12) We are not the villains you paint us on your trollblogs.
  • (13) For the real villain – look behind Obama, to the Republican party.
  • (14) It is, according to environmentalist and MP Zac Goldsmith, the most dramatic turnaround of any global green villain ever seen and an encouraging sign that huge environmental challenges can be tackled.
  • (15) As Paltrow explains: “So-called pro-life measures are being used in ways that not only violate women’s reproductive rights, but create the basis for depriving them of their constitutional personhood and human rights.” While it may be easy to cast women who drink in pregnancy as villains, criminalising them does no one any favours, save for those with a broader anti-women agenda.
  • (16) Fleming was intrigued by Engelhard's extravagant lifestyle and when he wrote Goldfinger , published in 1959, he based its eponymous villain on him.
  • (17) In the Kenzie and Gennaro series, like all good detective fiction, the city is as sharp and unpredictable as the villains themselves.
  • (18) Why swapping heroes for heroines is a Top Dollar idea Read more The potential gender-swap casting comes after Britain’s Andrea Riseborough was named earlier this month as a frontrunner to play the villain Top Dollar in a high-profile upcoming remake of cult comic book movie The Crow.
  • (19) Mohammed al-Sabban Senior economic adviser, Saudi Arabia Moustachioed high-up in his country's ministry of petroleum and mineral resources, leader of the Saudi Arabian negotiating team, and a reasonable bet for Copenhagen's most likely villain.
  • (20) For one thing, villains always believe they are exceptional.