What's the difference between laugh and sneer?

Laugh


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To show mirth, satisfaction, or derision, by peculiar movement of the muscles of the face, particularly of the mouth, causing a lighting up of the face and eyes, and usually accompanied by the emission of explosive or chuckling sounds from the chest and throat; to indulge in laughter.
  • (v. i.) Fig.: To be or appear gay, cheerful, pleasant, mirthful, lively, or brilliant; to sparkle; to sport.
  • (v. t.) To affect or influence by means of laughter or ridicule.
  • (v. t.) To express by, or utter with, laughter; -- with out.
  • (n.) An expression of mirth peculiar to the human species; the sound heard in laughing; laughter. See Laugh, v. i.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Perhaps they can laugh it all off more easily, but only to the extent that the show doesn’t instill terror for how this country’s greatness will be inflicted on them next.
  • (2) Unlikely, he laughs: "We were founded on the idea of distributing information as far as possible."
  • (3) If this is what 70s stoners were laughing at, it feels like they’ve already become acquiescent, passive parts of media-relayed consumer society; precursors of the cathode-ray-frazzled pop-culture exegetists of Tarantino and Kevin Smith in the 90s.
  • (4) He shrugs his shoulders and laughs: "And they call us thieves!"
  • (5) It’s useless if we try and fight with them through force, so we try and fight with them through humour.” “There is a saying that laughing is the best form of medicine.
  • (6) During well-coordinated neurological and psychiatric treatment the laughing seizures (spontaneous, event-related, psychogenic) decreased and a considerable improvement in psychiatric and psychosocial problems was attained.
  • (7) Keepy-uppys should be a simple skill for a professional footballer, so when Tom Ince clocked himself in the face with the ball while preparing to take a corner early in the second half, even he couldn't help but laugh.
  • (8) Having long been accustomed to being the butt of other politicians' jokes, however, Farage is relishing what may yet become the last laugh.
  • (9) "I rang my wife to tell her," he says, "and she just laughed."
  • (10) Best friends since school, they sound like an old married couple, finishing each other's sentences, constantly referring to the other by name and making each other laugh; deep sonorous, belly laughs.
  • (11) Fields said: "The assertions that Tom Cruise likened making a movie to being at war in Afghanistan is a gross distortion of the record... What Tom said, laughingly, was that sometimes, 'That's what it feels like.'"
  • (12) I present this to Rudd, who laughs and asks if there was any overlap between those who wanted sex and those who wanted to start filming.
  • (13) He made me laugh and cry, and his courage in writing about what he was going through was sometimes quite overwhelming.
  • (14) I think the “horror and outrage” Roberts complains of were more like hilarity, and the story still makes me laugh (as do many others on Mumsnet, which is full of jokes as well as acronyms for everything).
  • (15) Patients with bilateral forebrain disease may commonly manifest the syndrome of pathologic laughing and weeping.
  • (16) She could still really make us laugh,” her mother says.
  • (17) He laughs: "I've had a few guys buck up against me, but that's all right because some of us enjoy the bucking."
  • (18) Intricate is the key word, as screwball dialogue plays off layered wordplay, recurring jokes and referential callbacks to build to the sort of laughs that hit you twice: an initial belly laugh followed, a few minutes later, by the crafty laugh of recognition.
  • (19) Harry Kane laughs off one-season wonder tag after Alan Shearer pep talk Read more “He is a great role model.
  • (20) "Everyone calls him the Socialist Worker Padre," one bland senior cleric told me with a sly and dismissive laugh.

Sneer


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To show contempt by turning up the nose, or by a particular facial expression.
  • (v. i.) To inssinuate contempt by a covert expression; to speak derisively.
  • (v. i.) To show mirth awkwardly.
  • (v. t.) To utter with a grimace or contemptuous expression; to utter with a sneer; to say sneeringly; as, to sneer fulsome lies at a person.
  • (v. t.) To treat with sneers; to affect or move by sneers.
  • (n.) The act of sneering.
  • (n.) A smile, grin, or contortion of the face, indicative of contempt; an indirect expression or insinuation of contempt.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He made his political base in this western province, which has long felt sneered at: Harper has spent his political career redressing the balance.
  • (2) Gough, as the degenerate black sheep of an English family trying to blackmail an American adulterer, would curl a long lip into a sneering smile, which became a characteristic of this fine actor's style.
  • (3) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
  • (4) Webb agreed, calling Miliband "irresponsible" for "stirring up cheap headlines", sneering: "Why doesn't the government set a price cap on a tin of beans?"
  • (5) I think it's a good thing that comedians want to exploit (and relieve) our anxieties about what's sayable – but only if we as audiences become bolder in opposing comedy that bullies, comedy that sneers at the vulnerable and the under-represented, comedy that feels, in Herring's words, "like being at school and going, 'Ha ha, you're a spastic.'"
  • (6) Over the years the Oscars have been variously coveted and sneered at, have increasingly brought box-office value and personal prestige, become a media obsession, a gauge of industrial morale and a way of taking the national pulse.
  • (7) It has sneered at the 1906 reforms of Lloyd George , who recognised that 19th-century philanthropy (which was always pretty judgmental and selective) was no longer adequate for a modern industrial country.
  • (8) Merkel grimly submitted to an executive fashion makeover after the media sneered at her frumpy look; now she clearly relishes shining out in jewel-toned jackets from a forest of dark suits at G20 meetings.
  • (9) At which point – obviously – you reach the stubborn limits of the debate: from even the most supposedly imaginative Labour people as much as any Tories, such heresies would presumably be greeted with sneering derision.
  • (10) This is so corny, what I'm saying, but I feel obliged to drone on about it, because before we reach the tipping point, it's time to stop sneering at fat people, being disapproving and bossing them about: walk to work, eat your greens, control yourselves.
  • (11) Henry Barnes The clergy may not be entirely trustworthy This may not be big news to cinemagoers – sneering at religious types goes all the way back to DW Griffith's Intolerance – but Cannes boasts an impressively ecumenical approach.
  • (12) Chindamo's trial, the following year, heard how the teenager, who came to Britain from Italy at the age of five, sneered as he slapped, punched and then stabbed the headteacher.
  • (13) Oh, but now this is highfalutin identity politics to be sneered at along with your safe spaces and trigger warnings.
  • (14) Hours after Tuesday’s bomb attack on a tourist area of Istanbul , Erdoğan delivered a sneering criticism of Chomsky and “so-called intellectuals” who had signed a letter calling on Turkey to end the “deliberate massacre” of Kurdish people in the south east of the country, He invited Chomsky to visit the area in a defiant televised speech to a conference of Turkish ambassadors in Ankara.
  • (15) "I always hated the expression anyway, mostly because I encountered it in stupid or sneering contexts."
  • (16) Naturally, Michael Gove , former Times columnist, responded to the thousands of economists who warned he was taking an extraordinary risk with the sneer that will follow him to his grave: “People in this country have had enough of experts.” He’s been saying the same for years.
  • (17) It is easy to sneer at the journalistic concept of the Angry Young Man (a phrase, incidentally, coined by a dismissive Royal Court press officer).
  • (18) But Winterbottom, a competent pre-war centre-half for Manchester United, unfairly sneered at by some England international veterans as one who had never played, was, in essence, a bureaucrat rather than a technician, who would admit his other job – yes, he had two!
  • (19) The decision to have clip-on ties, favoured for police officers, sneered at by those who believe "children should learn to do ties up from an early age", is already paying off, with not a single tie out of place.
  • (20) If you ever feel tempted to say "status quo" or "cul de sac", for instance, Orwell will sneer at you for "pretentious diction".