What's the difference between honesty and improbity?

Honesty


Definition:

  • (a.) Honor; honorableness; dignity; propriety; suitableness; decency.
  • (a.) The quality or state of being honest; probity; fairness and straightforwardness of conduct, speech, etc.; integrity; sincerity; truthfulness; freedom from fraud or guile.
  • (a.) Chastity; modesty.
  • (a.) Satin flower; the name of two cruciferous herbs having large flat pods, the round shining partitions of which are more beautiful than the blossom; -- called also lunary and moonwort. Lunaria biennis is common honesty; L. rediva is perennial honesty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Trump and Hillary Clinton’s dismal honesty ratings, he says, show scrutiny is working.
  • (2) The authors conducted the course together and an atmosphere of intellectual honesty was developed through open discussion between faculty and students.
  • (3) Hunt’s comments were, in many senses, a restatement of traditional, economically liberal ideas on relationships between doing wage work and poverty relief, mirroring, for example, arguments of the 1834 poor law commissioners, which suggested wage supplements diminished the skills, honesty and diligence of the labourer, and the more recent claim of Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice that the earned pound was “superior” to that received in benefits.
  • (4) Also on Monday, rock musician and leading opponent of the cull Brian May issued a call for Paterson to resign, claiming he had failed to meet the public's expectation of "honesty and transparency".
  • (5) During a break between Detective Frost and Whitechapel, I decided to have a farewell glass of port in the honesty bar adjacent to the library.
  • (6) The battery assesses constructs related to honesty, violence, substance abuse, emotional stability and safety.
  • (7) (part 1 of 2) #mufc April 22, 2014 Manchester United (@ManUtd) BREAKING: The club would like to place on record its thanks for the hard work, honesty and integrity he brought to the role.
  • (8) The prayer appeals for “grace to debate the issues in this referendum with honesty and openness”.
  • (9) Hopefully these observations will help bring some honesty to the debate about alcohol, which kills up to 40,000 people a year in the UK and over 2.25 million worldwide in the latest 2011 WHO report .
  • (10) But for those Eurosceptics he needed to secure the party leadership, the realignment was an act of honesty and principle since the Tories oppose the Lisbon treaty and are utterly at odds with Europe's dominant Christian Democrats.
  • (11) An NHS trust's lack of honesty caused "unnecessary pain and further distress" to a family who had already suffered from the tragic and avoidable death of a baby boy, the health service ombudsman has said in the latest scathing verdict on the defensive culture within the health service.
  • (12) I am truly saddened by Dick’s decision but I respect him for his honesty and for doing what he feels is right for the club,” said Sunderland’s owner.
  • (13) The diplomats told Washington that certain themes in American movies seemed to appeal to the Saudi audience: heroic honesty in the face of corruption (George Clooney in Michael Clayton), supportive behaviour in relationships (an unspecified drama that was repeated during an Eid holiday featuring an American husband dealing with a drunk wife who smashed cars and crockery when she wasn't assaulting him and their child), and respect for the law over self-interest (Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Insomnia).
  • (14) It is necessary to face the problem with complete intellectual honesty and say that a fetus is a human being no matter what its age, but that voluntary abortion is also a social necessity.
  • (15) Envelopes stuffed with cash, it is claimed, were their reward for ensuring Blatter beat Lennart Johansson, the 'honesty' candidate, to become the soccer world's most powerful leader.
  • (16) Rather they are a plea for greater honesty in the evaluation process.
  • (17) Now that the book is published, does she regret such naked honesty?
  • (18) Today's verdict ‑ the striking-off of Wakefield and Prof John Walker-Smith, who was in charge of the department of paediatric gastroenterology at the Royal Free hospital in London, where the research took place and the acquittal of the-then junior consultant Simon Murch, who had doubts about the project ‑ was about ethics and honesty, not science.
  • (19) But the frailty of a three-minute song – the concise honesty of that expression – amazes me and turns me into a bucket of jealousy.
  • (20) The shadow chancellor said it "will come down to honesty versus dishonesty", as parties battle for votes ahead of the general election, which is expected to take place on 6 May.

Improbity


Definition:

  • (n.) Lack of probity; want of integrity or rectitude; dishonesty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Schneiderlin, valued at an improbable £27m, and the currently injured Jay Rodriguez are wanted by their former manager Mauricio Pochettino at Spurs, but the chairman Ralph Krueger has apparently called a halt to any more outgoings, saying: “They are part of the core that we have decided to keep at Southampton.” He added: “Jay Rodriguez and Morgan Schneiderlin are not for sale and they will be a part of our club as we enter the new season.” The new manager Ronald Koeman has begun rebuilding by bringing in Dusan Tadic and Graziano Pellè from the Dutch league and Krueger said: “We will have players coming in, we will make transfers to strengthen the squad.
  • (2) He admitted that he had “no reason” to fire the shots that killed Steenkamp, as Nel told him: “Your version is so improbable, that nobody would ever think it’s reasonably, possibly true, it’s so impossible … Your version is a lie.” Nel said the phrase “I love you” appeared only twice in WhatsApp messages from Steenkamp and, on both occasions, they were written to her mother: “Never to you and you never to her.” Day 20: live coverage as it happened.
  • (3) Their behavior may be rationalized by assuming that at low concentrations they bind to the primary binding site making rebinding of once dissociated [3H]QNB molecules improbable (competitive mechanism), whereas at high concentrations they also act on a secondary (allosteric) binding site stabilizing the [3H]QNB receptor complexes by slowing their off-kinetics.
  • (4) As for the speaker in parliament Thura Shwe Mann, a former general, he has formed an improbable alliance with Aung San Suu Kyi, on the assumption that she might help him thwart the plans of his former cronies.
  • (5) He is helped by constituency boundaries that skew the pitch in Labour’s favour, but even then the leap required looks improbable.
  • (6) It is improbable that the platform-pendulum controversy is due to differences in the amount of PS deprivation or the other sleep parameters measured here.
  • (7) Comparison of the upstream regions of the SAA genes with those of the rat fibrinogen genes, whose expression is also induced by inflammation, reveals sequences common to all six genes which are very improbable on a random basis.
  • (8) No positive reactions occurred in either of the tests so that phototoxic effects can be excluded and a photoallergic potential is improbable.
  • (9) It said those concerned were "not shouting it from the rooftops" but "sheltering their holdings behind increasingly improbably names".
  • (10) This finding in conjunction with the observation that the generation of (Phe, G)- and Pro--L-specific responses were associated in individual recipients injected with limiting inocula of thymocytes indicated that a single population of thymocytes was stimulated by (Phe,G)-Pro--L. Therefore, it is improbable that the thymic population of immunocompetent cells contributes to expression of these genetically controlled defects.
  • (11) (viii) It is highly improbable that within the last few years two viruses (HIV-1 and HIV-2) that are only 40% sequence-related would have evolved that could both cause the newly defined syndrome AIDS.
  • (12) The chromosome abnormalities were so severe that it is highly improbable that mitosis led to successful nuclear multiplication within a given syncytium.
  • (13) The Argentinian's equaliser was also hit from an improbable angle but it was a much more presentable chance than his first-half efforts – City's passing move had been direct, featuring two consecutive forward passes with Nasri playing a wonderful assist, and City had cut through the Chelsea defence swiftly.
  • (14) Jackson, too, wears black shoes and black clothes, and, improbably for his age, has mostly black hair.
  • (15) They could have scored more had they needed to but began to play overambitious passes and attempt improbable shots.
  • (16) So it didn't matter how unlike Miliband Wallace was, as long as they shared the attribute of seeming an improbable sort to be prime minister.
  • (17) Its perception of the improbability of living states is at least partially an artifact of closed system thinking.
  • (18) Typical arrangements of the EEG-context which make improbable an assumption of a structural lesion can be demonstrated for certain anterior-left as well as posterior-right localized patterns.
  • (19) The narrative drivers are pretty slack – improbable dialogue ("I'm a very wealthy man, Miss Steele, and I have expensive and absorbing hobbies"); lame characterisation; irritating tics (a constant war between Steele's "subconscious", which is always fainting or putting on half-moon glasses, and her "inner goddess", who is forever pouting and stamping); and an internal monologue that goes like this … "Holy hell, he's hot!
  • (20) It therefore seems improbable that a definitive decision concerning the use of one or another of these agents can be made.

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