What's the difference between homily and platitude?

Homily


Definition:

  • (n.) A discourse or sermon read or pronounced to an audience; a serious discourse.
  • (n.) A serious or tedious exhortation in private on some moral point, or on the conduct of life.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He and George Osborne offer a version of her housewife homilies about debt to justify their approach to cutting the deficit.
  • (2) During his homily he said that, given theirs was the foremost Catholic country in Asia, Filipinos were called to be missionaries of faith.
  • (3) He did have some good lines: "We can shape our future or let events shape it for us," and later, "don't shortchange the future because of our fear of the present," - one of those homilies which make you nod in agreement, before you realise you have no idea what it means.
  • (4) In a brief, unscripted homily, the pope told the young inmates that everyone, including him, had to be in the service of others.
  • (5) Then at last we came to the Oldie of Oldies, Ken Dodd, aged 87, whose stream of jokes, homilies and character impersonations (Quasimodo) threatened to take us through to dinner and perhaps even the next day’s breakfast, until the chairman intervened and everyone clapped long and firmly to make sure the comedian didn’t start up again.
  • (6) The parish priest said: “He died a young man – just 25 years of age – and the death of a young person seems to hit us harder.” In his homily during mass Father Brendan Callanan added: “It has taken a long time for us to come to this point but we are here.” Digging is continuing at the site where their remains were found.
  • (7) wasn’t an official ad, but was tacitly endorsed by Bush and adopted the style of a stirring war homily (think Band of Brothers: the Documentary) as a group of Vietnam vets smeared John Kerry’s war record.
  • (8) There are isolated jaunty moments: a musical duet with an existentialist banjo; some amusing homilies written on cards and distributed to the audience.
  • (9) They should remember the character of their party.” What he meant by this is the homily he often delivers: the Liberal party is a broad church.
  • (10) In a homily at Philadelphia’s largest cathedral, he exhorted the priests and religious orders to adapt to a “rapidly changing society” and better engage with lay women and young people .
  • (11) "We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities when so many people are waiting for the Gospel," Francis said in his homily on Saturday.
  • (12) The vigil capped a busy day for the pope in which he drove home a message he has emphasizsed throughout the week in speeches, homilies and off-the-cuff remarks: the need for Catholics, lay and religious, to shake up the status quo, get out of their stuffy sacristies and reach the faithful on the margins of society or risk losing them to rival churches.
  • (13) Although never directly, Bergoglio has delivered homilies in which he declared himself against Fernández's apparent ambition to change the Argentine Constitution to seek a third term of office in 2015, asking for "the banishment of oversized ambitions" and criticizing "the deliriums of grandeur" of the country's politicians.
  • (14) Pope Francis’s remarks were made to hundreds of bishops that were assembled for the pope’s remarks in St Matthew’s cathedral in Washington DC, where he delivered his homily in Italian.
  • (15) The impromptu homily about love and domestic quarrels replaced a far more divisive set of principles that he was supposed to deliver.
  • (16) Keeping with his spontaneous style, the first pope from Latin America broke away several times from the text of his prepared homily to encourage the faithful to lead simple lives.
  • (17) I gave my routine homily about future limits, offered what advice I could, and said goodbye, mindful of the likely fatigue he would be suffering.
  • (18) The Dean of Canterbury, the Very Rev Robert Willis, will deliver a homily.” Welby had been due to talk about how the true spirit of Christmas could not be captured in fairytale endings, using the example of the first world war Christmas truce in 1914.
  • (19) This is a terrible collection of weak observations and stolen homilies, designed to single out anyone who retweets them as someone who deserves to spend an eternity being punched in the nose in hell.
  • (20) The homily mesmerized hundreds of thousands beyond the parkway, with Jumbotrons relaying the mass to pilgrims and passersby who gazed, rapt, in the hushed heart of a usually hectic city.

Platitude


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being flat, thin, or insipid; flat commonness; triteness; staleness of ideas of language.
  • (n.) A thought or remark which is flat, dull, trite, or weak; a truism; a commonplace.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In any case, people had tired of combative rhetoric and wanted softer platitudes.
  • (2) It’s clear she lends a sympathetic ear to many reformist ideas; in London last year she said: “We must constantly renew Europe’s political shape so that it keeps up with the times.” Beyond the platitudes, Merkel is open to reforms to the internal market, to competitiveness, to the bureaucracy and even to some of the institutions.
  • (3) Mills said: "Young people are not going to settle for the political platitudes that were sold to the post-independence generation.
  • (4) She said no surprises about the election date should mean "no excuses",  a clear barb at the conservative opposition leader, Tony Abbott, whom she has criticised as announcing "platitudes not policies" and giving few costings for his promises.
  • (5) The duke’s statements about business, which to our tin ears sound like simplistic platitudes of the first water, are in fact fantastically complex and prescient exercises of soft power without which our economy simply could not function.
  • (6) Of course, at the end of the day, though, what workers really need is pay, not platitudes.
  • (7) Don Berwick's report on patient safety in the NHS has been attacked for being "strong on platitudes" and lacking in clear instructions.
  • (8) 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.
  • (9) She provides a strong contrast to her sanctimonious, humourless sister Mary, who spouts empty platitudes about acceptable female conduct.
  • (10) Time and time again Corbyn ducks saying things like that, preferring to shelter behind platitudes like “give peace a chance”.
  • (11) Humble and hard working” may be the standard response from footballers asked about their team-mates but with Gabriel it gets repeated so often and in a tone so convincing that it no longer sounds like a platitude.
  • (12) Such “we are all one world” platitudes infuriate those whose families and communities will bear the impact of any new migration, coming from those who have no intention of bearing it at all.
  • (13) By and large, however, Obama stuck to empty platitudes that no one could disagree with (“we need to ... protect our children’s information” and “I intend to protect a free and open internet”) rather than offering concrete new proposals.
  • (14) Please don't give me the "aunts are loved too" platitudes.
  • (15) Enough platitudes and excuses: here is the truth about this week of sexism Read more But you don’t just tell people to respect women, you show that you respect women.
  • (16) You know if you've read Capital or if you've got the Cliff Notes , you know that his imaginings of how classical Marxism – of how his logic would work when applied – kind of devolve into such nonsense as the withering away of the state and platitudes like that.
  • (17) Now we're onto the junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is spouting equally meaningless platitudes.
  • (18) "We need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago and to make sure that what we said was not just a bunch of platitudes.
  • (19) I’m not interested in platitudes or buzzwords like “anti-austerity” or “aspiration”.
  • (20) Malcolm Turnbull refuses to denounce Trump's travel ban Read more Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turnbull: ‘When I have frank advice to give an American president, I give it privately’ This is not the time for the Australian government to offer mealy-mouthed platitudes about not commenting on the policies of other countries.