What's the difference between insincere and unctuous?

Insincere


Definition:

  • (a.) Not being in truth what one appears to be; not sincere; dissembling; hypocritical; disingenuous; deceitful; false; -- said of persons; also of speech, thought; etc.; as, insincere declarations.
  • (a.) Disappointing; imperfect; unsound.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In a statement, the network added: "The crackdown on activists, being directly related to the anniversary, demonstrates contempt towards international human rights norms and insincerity in the government's own pledges and commitments to promote human rights in China ."
  • (2) In London, for instance, the insincere granite cladding of Canary Wharf owes much to his example.
  • (3) The health prospects of Mubarak, who has long been ill, could have a major impact on the volatile internal politics of Egypt , where tensions between pro-reform protesters and the interim authorities – which are accused by some of being too slow in holding the Mubarak regime to account and insincere in their efforts to build democratic institutions – are threatening to bubble over.
  • (4) Did glossing over his feelings during the interview reveal Prince as insincere or more concerned with selling his album than engaging with real life?
  • (5) It took two weeks for him to address the issue publicly, while his wife Patience was accused of melodrama smacking of insincerity when she met mothers of the kidnapped girls.
  • (6) Almost anyone will say an insincere 'sorry' when they hope it will avert the loss of liberty, or a bag of sweets, or even a seat in Parliament."
  • (7) It’s what happens when weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance.
  • (8) But to reach those heights and win popular backing, Sisi has been forced to adopt the vocabulary of revolution, however insincerely, and issue promises – on economic justice, an end to corruption, an improvement in living standards – that his unreformed state will not be able to deliver.
  • (9) Not because either statement is insincere: all writers genuinely want people to read their books and all law-enforcement agencies really believe they need more powers.
  • (10) All around me were other parents, similarly shouting and cheering at their mostly embarrassed little ones – and after each race triumphant handshakes, sarcastic congratulations and insincere condolences were offered.
  • (11) "The Daily Express is not in the business of conning our readers with gimmicks and insincere campaigns.
  • (12) "This seeming refusal to accept that the contents of his emails were in fact sexist and inappropriate to my mind completely undermines his public apology and leads to only one conclusion: that it was insincere and therefore unsustainable in the court of public opinion," he said.
  • (13) Iain Duncan Smith has accused David Cameron of insincerity and an attempt to deceive the public over EU immigration, as the out campaign stepped up its attacks on the prime minister’s character.
  • (14) A glance at what Smith has said in the past on certain subjects, and what he is saying about them now, has left him open to the charge of insincerity, and there were a couple of moments when he appeared to trip.
  • (15) Chief Inspector Ted Antill, of Nottinghamshire police, said: "While this recent example may be amusing, it illustrates the sort of insincere calls we have to deal with on a daily basis in the control room.
  • (16) Smith and his cronies were kept in power by a combination of white redoubt solidarity in southern Africa, deep divisions among Rhodesian-African tribal groups and guerrilla movements, irresolution in London, inertia and insincerity elsewhere - and a small group of white Rhodesian, South African and British army officers, police, security men and sanctions-busters whose cunning knew no bounds.
  • (17) Sommer, who volunteered for the Bob Dole campaign as a kid and “reluctantly” voted for George W Bush in 2004, said she found Trump’s gambit early in the 2016 primary race to sit out a debate, to ostentatiously raise money for veterans, to be insincere.
  • (18) In the preface he wrote: "I do not believe the fable that men read travel books to escape from reality: they read to escape into it, from a crazy wonderland of armaments, cant, political speeches at once insincere and illiterate, propaganda, and social injustice which the lunacy of humanity has constructed over a period of years."
  • (19) The word "sorry" – even if said insincerely – carries a sense of personal responsibility.
  • (20) Only last month, his insincere clapping upon being booked against Barcelona swiftly saw him receive his marching orders.

Unctuous


Definition:

  • (a.) Of the nature or quality of an unguent or ointment; fatty; oily; greasy.
  • (a.) Having a smooth, greasy feel, as certain minerals.
  • (a.) Bland; suave; also, tender; fervid; as, an unctuous speech; sometimes, insincerely suave or fervid.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Early opportunities to indulge his skill for making unctuousness compelling came in the roles of a school snitch in the Al Pacino vehicle Scent of a Woman (1992), for which Hoffman auditioned five times.
  • (2) Trump, when asked last December which president he most admires, did not pay the usual unctuous tribute to Lincoln, Kennedy or Reagan, but said that his role model was James Marshall.
  • (3) Already irritated with Speaker John Bercow for being long-winded, unctuous and perceptibly anti-Conservative in the House of Commons, the idea that his Labour-supporting wife would go on the programme's Channel 5 reincarnation had been a red rag to the proverbial.
  • (4) Disease, birth-defects and chronic illnesses are all part and parcel of an unregulated industry that operates outside the range of global media but with the full complicity of the Nigerian government that wants nothing whatsoever to upset its unctuous cash-cow.
  • (5) That your jaw is wired open, and you're being spoonfed thick, unctuous vomit from a large tureen forged from glimmering, gilded rubbish.
  • (6) These things are driven by rolling, unctuous television telling people a great event is unfolding, focusing on the few hysterics in tears and not the many who come to feel their pain.
  • (7) Just as he had (arguably) revolutionised TV satire, making it threatening to, rather than complicit with, the establishment, here he was changing the nature of the TV interview: unctuous deference was out; aggression and scepticism were in.
  • (8) But there's no doubt who left amid the biggest slurp of unctuous adulation.
  • (9) Listening to the voluptuous precision with which he articulated his dream of feasting "on the swelling, unctuous paps of a fat, pregnant sow", it was good to be reminded of the matchless clarity of the Richardson voice which remains one of the great treasures of my theatre-going lifetime.
  • (10) Despite the ongoing threat to national sanity posed by The X Factor, such pop is no longer the embarrassing province of the unctuous boyband, or pitched strictly at the tweenage market.
  • (11) This dish is the opposite of all those things: sinfully rich, full of butter, served with unctuous roasting juices on top.
  • (12) So, the trick is either to catch the meat before the muscle cells burst, or leave it in the oven for ages until everything reaches an unctuous softness.
  • (13) History’s first overtly gay Disney character, it turns out, is LeFou, unctuous manservant to preening, hyper-macho villain Gaston – an underling who, in Condon’s words, “on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston”.
  • (14) This is said often, even in this unctuous week - and yet still it does not permeate.
  • (15) Pointlessly suffixed to a retweet to indicate earnest accord, "<THIS" is really nothing but an unctuous tagnut.
  • (16) The pintxos are chalked up on a board and cooked to order: an unctuous risotto of mushrooms and idiazabal (a Basque cheese), garlic soup with pig's ear, braised veal cheeks in wine or a bacalao (salt cod) taco.
  • (17) But the haphazard canals criss-crossing it were still full of thick, unctuous water with a rainbow film on top, and white paint on the birch tree trunks could not cover the black trace of oil, Greenpeace says.
  • (18) We may be sure that the MP for Clacton has never trimmed his views for political advantage; nor has he begun a question with the unctuous phrase “May I congratulate my right honourable friend…” I know from experience that the role of an independent MP comes with its disadvantages.
  • (19) The always-packed tapas bar Casa Revuelta dishes up the city’s pre-eminent pinchos de bacalao – piping-hot, fist-size nuggets of flaky, unctuous cod (€2.80).
  • (20) Despite unctuous protests about good taste, there is an audience for this fight, a considerably bigger one than there had been before they came to blows in front of the cameras and some distance from a referee.