What's the difference between laconic and taciturn?

Laconic


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Laconical
  • (n.) Laconism.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Parties seek a sharper definition and a clearer purpose: voters rightly demand a reason to rule beyond Cameron’s laconic “because I thought I’d be good at it”.
  • (2) Just over two years later, Harvey, a 29-year-old with a laconic line in humour, can look back on it and joke about it.
  • (3) Miles, who spoke laconically and without passion, recommended that the tubes remain in place for several weeks at a stretch to minimize risk to a detainee.
  • (4) The author has revealed a classification based on systematization of most frequently observed pathology, that allows a laconic functional and topical diagnosis and provides phlebological patients with individualized treatment.
  • (5) As Clarke Reed, the former chair of the Mississippi Republican party who played a key role in the last contested convention in 1976, told the Guardian far more laconically, a contested convention this year is “likely to lead to all kinds of games being played”.
  • (6) Wittgenstein's reply is said to have been the laconic but absurdly cheerful: "Great!
  • (7) Spoofing the popular media that lamented the loss of a "great statesman", the weekly's headline laconically read: "Tragic ball at Colombey, one dead".
  • (8) You must have known,” Price says – laconic, nasal, one leg casually hitched up on the bench, endlessly jingling coins in his pocket – “that to give a senior public figure an arrest warning could lead to a complaint direct to the commissioner’s office.” Do you not see how important Mr Mitchell is?
  • (9) Kean dismissed the gesture with a laconic: "I didn't notice it."
  • (10) "We've all read the same spy novels," one said laconically.
  • (11) Mackenzie flew to Brazil this week as Ferreira came under increasing fire from local authorities, residents and media for what many saw as a laconic response to one of the South American nation’s worst mining disasters.
  • (12) Greater dementia severity in the SRD subjects was associated with laconic speech that was syntactially less complex.
  • (13) Probably not a good idea,” says a suitably laconic Chris Pratt in the trailer, which probably tells you everything you need to know here.
  • (14) Downing Street clarified the statement by laconically pointing out that "it's hardly surprising that UKTI DSO are seeking to promote defence exports – that's their job".
  • (15) At one point, Focus revealedon Monday, he had asked laconically why the police couldn't have waited until he was dead.
  • (16) Don’t expect a wild change of tack from Cohen, who turns 80 the day before the album comes out – Popular Problems is as laconic and gravelly as ever.
  • (17) From the start he was academically brilliant, in his off-beat and laconically concise way.
  • (18) At the end of a drive to Yucca, Arizona, 200 miles south-east of Vegas, we swung through the ranch gate and climbed out to a laconic “Howdy” from a cowpoke who introduced himself as Tex, the head wrangler.
  • (19) Official coverage in Russia of Novodvorskaya's passing has been muted, and President Putin's office issued a laconic statement .
  • (20) The problem with Dave is he’s so laconic, which I discovered recently is a posh person’s way of calling someone bone idle.

Taciturn


Definition:

  • (a.) Habitually silent; not given to converse; not apt to talk or speak.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The letters have been published amid growing signs that Charles is planning to rule in a far more outspoken way than the taciturn Queen.
  • (2) Last autumn, however, his allies told a Guardian investigation into the shape of his future reign that he intends to continue to make “heartfelt interventions” in public life after he becomes sovereign, in contrast to the Queen’s taciturn discretion on public affairs.
  • (3) Inside the Hark to Bounty pub in the Lancashire village of Slaidburn, I found taciturn young gamekeepers, cheeks flushed red from a day outdoors, quietly discussing their shoot by the open fire.
  • (4) He may claim to be "like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to my job", but others see something far less fun – describing him as taciturn, quiet, serious and work-focused.
  • (5) More than 20 novels later Rendell explained why she kept returning to her taciturn detective.
  • (6) He revealed his taciturn coach Ivan Lendl had given him a hug later.
  • (7) I'll find myself sitting cross-legged next to a taciturn Swedish engineer, a heavily tattooed biker, or another migrant – there's a computer programmer from Chennai – as our children play with the wooden blocks, rattles and drums.
  • (8) In receiving the David Cohen Literature Prize for lifetime achievement in 1995, he spoke of the sheer pleasure that writing gave him: "I'm well aware that I have been described in some quarters as being 'enigmatic, taciturn, terse, prickly, explosive and forbidding.'
  • (9) In the few interviews he has given over the past 50 years, he has come across as sombre and taciturn.
  • (10) Regimented, taciturn, Orwellian images of China's 17th Communist party congress have drawn little comment.
  • (11) Normally taciturn and professorial, Zeidan threatened to attack the tanker and sink it if it tried to leave.
  • (12) The legendarily taciturn Ford, when asked how he was, simply said, “I’m fine”, and then, perhaps sensing that was not enough, thanked Hardwick for asking.
  • (13) It’s impossible to say.” Murray, who tamed his once fiery temper, particularly during his two years with the taciturn Ivan Lendl, has continually expressed satisfaction with the two-time slam champion Mauresmo since she replaced the Czech on a short-term basis a few weeks ago.
  • (14) The taciturn Pierrepoint never bragged about “the job”.
  • (15) The fast-talking Ali invariably delighted in using the more taciturn Frazier as his stooge.
  • (16) The narrator is the 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame, who lives with his taciturn father in an isolated house on the north-east coast of Scotland .
  • (17) His default utterance is a grunt – that's how he responds when Jessica Chastain's glamorous dancer Maggie swans into town and takes a shine to him – but in spite of his taciturn nature, you can feel the heat of Forrest's intelligence.
  • (18) Didn't the way that even the most taciturn stars always wanted to take him into their most private confidence seem at all strange to him at the time?
  • (19) Far from being the taciturn meathead that his films generally make him out to be, he barely lets up for the 45 minutes I spend with him.
  • (20) She was well until August 20, 1988, when she was noted to have become taciturn and absent-minded.