What's the difference between hoax and sham?

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."

Sham


Definition:

  • (n.) That which deceives expectation; any trick, fraud, or device that deludes and disappoint; a make-believe; delusion; imposture, humbug.
  • (n.) A false front, or removable ornamental covering.
  • (a.) False; counterfeit; pretended; feigned; unreal; as, a sham fight.
  • (v. t.) To trick; to cheat; to deceive or delude with false pretenses.
  • (v. t.) To obtrude by fraud or imposition.
  • (v. t.) To assume the manner and character of; to imitate; to ape; to feign.
  • (v. i.) To make false pretenses; to deceive; to feign; to impose.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The results indicated that smoke, as opposed to sham puffs, significantly reduced reports of cigarette craving, and local anesthesia significantly blocked this immediate reduction in craving produced by smoke inhalation.
  • (2) Five days later, the animals were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: Group 1 received intracranial implantation of controlled-release polymers containing dexamethasone; Group 2 received intraperitoneal implantation of controlled-release polymers containing dexamethasone; Group 3 received serial intraperitoneal injections of dexamethasone; and Group 4 received sham treatment.
  • (3) In contrast sham-hemodialysis in group CA and group PS, respectively, did not result in significant increases in amino acid efflux from the leg implying that the protein catabolic effect of blood membrane contact depends on the chemical properties of dialysis membranes.
  • (4) Meanwhile Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, waiting anxiously for news of the scale of the Labour advance in his first nationwide electoral test, will urge the electorate not to be duped by the promise of a coalition mark 2, predicting sham concessions by the Conservatives .
  • (5) The plasma renin activity of the 1 day post-stenosis rats showed 65% higher activity than the sham controls with no significant change in the 30-60 days post-stenosis.
  • (6) The results indicate that, regardless of the photoperiod, no clear functional relationship can be found between the avian pineal gland and thyroid function, although a transitory increase in T4 levels was seen in both pinealectomized and sham-operated birds shortly after the operations.
  • (7) The amounts of erythropoietin produced in animals subjected to hepatectomy are significantly higher than those observed in sham-operated animals.
  • (8) However, stimulation of the release of NTLI by intraduodenal administration of oleic acid (0.2 ml) resulted in significantly higher p-NTLI levels in the nephrectomized rats than in the sham operated rats.
  • (9) Three groups of male rats received lesions of AP and another 3 groups received sham lesion.
  • (10) Pretreatment with CV6209 had no significant influence on these parameters in sham-operated animals.
  • (11) We found that kidney extracts from 6 h and 24 h uninephrectomized rats increased [3H]thymidine incorporation into tubular cell DNA, dose-dependently, compared to those from sham-operated rats.
  • (12) The sizes of adrenaline (A) and noradrenaline (N) cells in the adrenal medulla of nonoperated (NO), sham-operated (SPX), and pinealectomized (PX) male rats (n = 126) were investigated by quantitative light microscopy.
  • (13) The concentrations and total content of the nicotinamide nucleotides were measured in the livers of rats at various times after partial hepatectomy and laparotomy (sham hepatectomy) and correlated with other events in the regeneration process.
  • (14) The volume densities of the differing strial components from steroid-administered animals were determined to approximate those of sham-adrenalectomized animals in general.
  • (15) With five daily 1-hr occlusions of the hepatic artery, rats benefited from significantly reduced tumor growth rates compared with controls that underwent sham operation (P less than 0.05).
  • (16) In the dynamic phase the weight of interscapular brown adipose tissue was significantly increased in the VMH-lesioned rats, but the specific GDP binding was depressed both in the morning and afternoon when compared with either the sham-operated or PVN-lesioned groups.
  • (17) There were no changes in the joints which had sham operations.
  • (18) In contrast, in Px-SUC both masses were comparable to the sham groups.
  • (19) Only at 3 days did total plasma volume of SAD rats show a modest reduction of about 16% (P less than 0.05 vs. sham-operated plus unoperated controls).
  • (20) The binding of 125I-labeled epidermal growth factor (EGF) was compared in acini isolated from the regenerating remnant following 90% partial pancreatectomy (ppx) and from the pancreas of sham-pancreatectomized (sham-ppx) rats.