What's the difference between lackadaisical and pusillanimous?

Lackadaisical


Definition:

  • (a.) Affectedly pensive; languidly sentimental.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But this is fairly typical of the flat-footed and lackadaisical attitude that we’ve seen from the outset.
  • (2) In this week's small-screen news, Alan Carr abandons his planned sitcom about dog walkers, blaming himself for being too lackadaisical to make it happen ; London Live, the Evening Standard's new London TV station, has bought up the hit YouTube sitcom All About the Mackenzies ; and Peep Show's imminent demise has been confirmed by Channel 4 head of comedy Phil Clarke .
  • (3) The prime minister, who has often been criticised for a lackadaisical approach to government, showed that he had learnt from his political hero Harold Macmillan when he wielded the No 10 carving knife in a manner rarely seen in recent years.
  • (4) The lack of robust incentives or sanctions from funders fosters a lackadaisical attitude among scientists, who must also bear some of the responsibility for the slow adoption of open access.
  • (5) • Markets reacted lackadaisically but there were some warnings in the financial world that this could be bad.
  • (6) They used to be lackadaisical but they got involved and found out that if you become part of a movement, you can change things.
  • (7) Jeb Bush backs brother's NSA surveillance program to keep America safe Read more In a speech that was sharply skeptical of Iran, demonstratively supportive of Israel and disdainful of a White House foreign policy that he characterized as lackadaisical and foolish, Bush covered everything from the legacy in Iraq and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s controversial visit to Washington to surveillance reform and relations with Cuba.
  • (8) Though AIDS was expected to arrive in Brazil, complacent, unconcerned officials responded in a lackadaisical manner through the veil of an abstract, inappropriate, and ideological Western-oriented model.
  • (9) A Conservative peer and former cabinet minister has attacked the UK media's "lackadaisical" response to the US whistleblower Edward Snowden and called on "defenders of liberty" to speak out against invasion of personal freedoms by the intelligence services.
  • (10) The "world team" played lackadaisical football, letting passes slide through and melting away whenever Kadyrov, stocky and heavy on his feet, had the ball.
  • (11) It means that far too many young people are lackadaisical in the way they present themselves for work.” He continued: “Youth unemployment in our country is far too high, and it is in everyone’s interest to make sure that young people receive the very best education and training to improve this situation.” Let’s all applaud the suggestion that youth unemployment is a problem the young people have brought on themselves, that employers are sweating plasma trying to find a single candidate who doesn’t turn up to the interview four days late, in pyjamas, with crayons stuffed up their nose.
  • (12) They moved to their own unpredictable beat, so much so that I would not have put money on them still being with us today, so laidback was their attitude, so lackadaisical their work rate, so uninterested were they in press or promotion.
  • (13) While the company has run afoul of US law for its lackadaisical approach to questions of real estate ownership, it has in Cuba an opportunity to start fresh with a government newly open to American businesses.
  • (14) "I am very surprised at the way in which the press in Britain has been so lackadaisical and not seen that there are issues here of huge importance.
  • (15) She told the Guardian the official investigation had been at best a “lackadaisical” effort and at worst a “huge fabrication”.
  • (16) We want the company hosting these threats to be less lackadaisical and able to respond faster.
  • (17) She sounds lackadaisical, but while she describes herself as "calm and laid-back", she also says she will "fight and fight and fight to keep acting in my life.
  • (18) From there they both won King’s Scholarships to Eton where Johnson’s famously lackadaisical approach – he failed to prepare his speech – led them to lose the house debating competition.

Pusillanimous


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind; of weak spirit; mean-spirited; spiritless; cowardly; -- said of persons, as, a pussillanimous prince.
  • (a.) Evincing, or characterized by, weakness of mind, and want of courage; feeble; as, pusillanimous counsels.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It is a pusillanimous, jargon-ridden, self-perpetuating proof of Parkinson's law .
  • (2) Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” the Mail asks.
  • (3) To be a bystander when one's discipline does offer insights and methods of value discernment is pusillanimous.
  • (4) He was the government’s top Europe adviser at David Cameron’s side throughout Britain’s EU renegotiation, where some accused him of pusillanimity in the face of Brussels intransigence .
  • (5) Result: the normally admirable Mr Grieve risked seeming a pusillanimous ministerial jobsworth unwilling to let the public learn the full truth about our foolish and meddling heir to the throne.
  • (6) But to make that a reason to abandon the policy would be pusillanimous in the extreme.
  • (7) This may be just what ministers' friends say to appease backbench plotters feeling betrayed by the apparent pusillanimity of cabinet failure to jump after Purnell.
  • (8) The Mail made clear its frustration: “Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” But while the Times called Boris Johnson “right”, the Sun is expected to take a far tougher line on a man the paper has already outed, along with Michael Gove, as being on the side of in.
  • (9) Britain and France, Europe's two military heavyweights, took the lead on the Libyan intervention in the teeth of outright opposition from Germany and pusillanimity in Washington.
  • (10) Why aren’t these faithless, pusillanimous people retaliating as they should, by surging towards Ukip with cries of revenge against all Muslims?
  • (11) For some, Wapping planted a decisive nail in the coffin of what Andrew Neil, a former Murdoch editor, has described as "all that was wrong with British industry: pusillanimous management, pig-headed unions, crazy restrictive practices, endless strikes and industrial disruption, and archaic technology".
  • (12) But only nine days into his administration, Clinton found himself at a press conference explaining “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, an awkward (and many thought pusillanimous) compromise to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military.
  • (13) The British government – pusillanimous as ever – thinks it is too sensitive a subject for us to ask the US why it is flouting an international agreement.
  • (14) The question then is, is this pusillanimity on his part?
  • (15) The pusillanimity of the remain campaign’s failure to counter these claims was indefensible.
  • (16) Amid so many humanitarian emergencies, it would be callous of Mr Cameron to pursue this nomination and pusillanimous of the secretary general to accept it.
  • (17) Heads should roll," he wrote on his website, "Isn't it really about time we decent, nice, liberal people stopped being so pusillanimously terrified of being thought 'Islamophobic' and stood up for decent, nice, liberal values?"