What's the difference between insult and libel?

Insult


Definition:

  • (v. t.) The act of leaping on; onset; attack.
  • (v. t.) Gross abuse offered to another, either by word or act; an act or speech of insolence or contempt; an affront; an indignity.
  • (v. t.) To leap or trample upon; to make a sudden onset upon.
  • (v. t.) To treat with abuse, insolence, indignity, or contempt, by word or action; to abuse; as, to call a man a coward or a liar, or to sneer at him, is to insult him.
  • (v. i.) To leap or jump.
  • (v. i.) To behave with insolence; to exult.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The variation of the activity of the peptidase with pH in the presence of various inhibitors was investigated in both control and insulted muscle fibres.
  • (2) To study these changes more thoroughly, specific monoclonal antibodies of the A and B subunits of calcineurin (protein phosphatase 2B) were raised, and regional alterations in the immunoreactivity of calcineurin in the rat hippocampus were investigated after a transient forebrain ischemic insult causing selective and delayed hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cell damage.
  • (3) Histopathological studies confirmed that mice fed 933cu-rev died from bilateral renal cortical tubular necrosis consistent with toxic insult, perhaps due to Shiga-like toxins.
  • (4) Combined with histological analysis, these results suggest a more rapid recovery of normal spermatogenesis after physical insult with LAC treatment.
  • (5) Mark Latham's insights, insults and feuds are why he's worth reading | Gay Alcorn Read more BuzzFeed political editor Mark Di Stefano, the reporter who broke the story linking Latham to the less-than-savoury @RealMarkLatham Twitter account , had been chasing Stutchbury for days.
  • (6) Among the various physiological factors involved in the development of a nephrotoxic insult, certain renal transport systems may be important.
  • (7) In addition, PROM is the result of direct bacterial insults or host-mediated autodestruction in response to bacterial presence or challenge.
  • (8) Postmortem biochemical indices may provide a useful adjunct to morphological studies in the identification of antemortem brain insult.
  • (9) This toxic effect, although not seen in intact nigrostriatal systems, may indicate L-dopa toxicity on transplanted DA cells, or on DA cells maximally activated to recover from insult.
  • (10) Under the conditions employed in these studies, repeated occlusions give rise to progressively more prolonged deficits in brain protein synthesis activity, which may thus provide a useful index of the severity of the accumulated ischemic insult.
  • (11) The loss of coronary reserve was less than that previously observed after a 15-min occlusion, suggesting that the magnitude of the postischemic vascular abnormalities increases with the duration of the ischemic insult.
  • (12) We also observed a difference in the pattern and severity of alterations between repeated ischemic insults and single ischemia.
  • (13) Unconsciousness was associated with a brief period of hypotension, so brief that in itself it caused no apparent insult.
  • (14) These findings suggest that NB-818 may be useful for clinical treatment of neurological deficit after an ischemic insult.
  • (15) For example, patients suffering from transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) experience onset of insult within 6 hours of a transfusion and have the presence of leukoagglutinins in their serum.
  • (16) This review article discusses the clinical manifestations and the diagnostic workup of insults to the kidney in patients with cancer.
  • (17) We have recently demonstrated in vitro a potential biological mechanism which could occur in vivo upon inhaling airborne graon dust, thereby constituting a potential inflammatory insult to the respiratory tracts of grain workers.
  • (18) It is hypothesized that transmission failure of interneuronal systems in the initial period following insult may be a general response occurring in wide areas of the central nervous system, and not restricted to areas to which mechanical stress is directly applied.
  • (19) These shape changes may become irreversible and, in fact, they may be encountered in different types of haemolytic disease, suggesting that the echinocytic and stomatocytic shape changes represent two fundamental ways in which red cells react to intrinsic and extrinsic insults.
  • (20) The Labour party erupted into open civil war as Ed Miliband loyalists and supporters of Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader who resigned this weekend, exchanged accusations and insults.

Libel


Definition:

  • (n.) A brief writing of any kind, esp. a declaration, bill, certificate, request, supplication, etc.
  • (n.) Any defamatory writing; a lampoon; a satire.
  • (n.) A malicious publication expressed either in print or in writing, or by pictures, effigies, or other signs, tending to expose another to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. Such publication is indictable at common law.
  • (n.) The crime of issuing a malicious defamatory publication.
  • (n.) A written declaration or statement by the plaintiff of his cause of action, and of the relief he seeks.
  • (v. t.) To defame, or expose to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule, by a writing, picture, sign, etc.; to lampoon.
  • (v. t.) To proceed against by filing a libel, particularly against a ship or goods.
  • (v. i.) To spread defamation, written or printed; -- with against.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Brett added companies should have to prove some financial damage – or the potential of financial damage – before they are allowed to launch a libel case.
  • (2) First, there are major vested interests, such as large corporations, foreign billionaires and libel lawyers, who will attempt to scupper reform.
  • (3) "In recent years, though, the increased threat of costly libel actions has begun to have a chilling effect on scientific and academic debate and investigative journalism."
  • (4) Aside from the fact that it is intemperate and inaccurate, it is also libelous.
  • (5) And there are plenty who think that, as our libel laws are cleaned up, smart lawyers are switching horses to privacy.
  • (6) The case, which had been going on for four years, became a cause celebre, one of a number that were used to spearhead a campaign for change to the libel laws by campaigners for freedom of speech.
  • (7) He stressed that the sister-in-law and her husband were not only accused of circulating libellously untrue stories but also of harassment of the wealthy financier.
  • (8) Polonsky is hoping to sue Lebedev for libel and is seeking damages for defamation, his lawyer Andrew Stephenson has said.
  • (9) Thousands who have confronted the possibility of a libel action have self-censored or backed down.
  • (10) He added that London remained the "libel capital of the world – the place where the rich and dodgy flock to keep their reputations intact".
  • (11) Newspapers have been lobbying hard to stave off a Leveson law of any kind, arguing that the press is already subject to laws ranging from libel to data protection and computer misuse acts to guard against illegal activities.
  • (12) Instead, NMT sued Wilmshurst in London, which has become the libel capital of the world.
  • (13) Priority has been given to applying sticking-plasters to libel law when urgent surgery is needed to regulate a tabloid newspaper industry that has been shown to have no regard for privacy or the criminal law.
  • (14) But Miller, in continuing to urge publishers to be "recognised" by the charter did refer to the "incentives", meaning a protection from the payment of legal costs for libel claimants (even if unsuccessful) and the imposition of exemplary damages (which would be very doubtful anyway).
  • (15) The inquiry originally looked as if it would be confined to the issue of "libel tourism", but it seems officials believed it would not be possible to restrict the inquiry in this way.
  • (16) His charge sheet includes numerous assaults (one against a waiter who served him the wrong dish of artichokes); jail time for libelling a fellow painter, Giovanni Baglione, by posting poems around Rome accusing him of plagiarism and calling him Giovanni Coglione (“Johnny Bollocks”); affray (a police report records Caravaggio’s response when asked how he came by a wound: “I wounded myself with my own sword when I fell down these stairs.
  • (17) The former Conservative chief whip Andrew Mitchell was a Jekyll and Hyde character who employed a mixture of charm and menace, his libel trial against the Sun newspaper over the Plebgate affair heard.
  • (18) In a letter to Hodge on Tuesday, Duncan also claimed that Hodge, the MP for Barking, had made “undoubtedly libellous assertions” about the tax affairs of the bank’s chief executive Stuart Gulliver.
  • (19) The libel laws have been long been considered to restrict free speech.
  • (20) What about the chilling effects of libel tourism and a system that both adds cost to stories and stifles freedom of expression?