What's the difference between lenient and relent?

Lenient


Definition:

  • (a.) Relaxing; emollient; softening; assuasive; -- sometimes followed by of.
  • (a.) Mild; clement; merciful; not rigorous or severe; as, a lenient disposition; a lenient judge or sentence.
  • (n.) A lenitive; an emollient.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This was less than predicted by many observers – each of the 12 offences had a maximum term of between two and 10 years – and immediately the attorney general's office received calls from the public asking it to look at whether it was too lenient.
  • (2) From Brussels our Europe editor, Ian Traynor , provides this analysis of this morning's events: The eurozone permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, has been given a green light to come into force two months later than planned following the supreme court decision in Karlsruhe which arrived with much more lenient caveats than had been predicted.
  • (3) Cable's strongly worded intervention came after parliament's spending watchdog, the public accounts committee, said HMRC was "way too lenient" on companies that use clever accounting tricks to pay very little or no tax.
  • (4) Even in the few cases where prosecution does take place, sentences tend to be lenient.
  • (5) Other estimates suggest little more than £150m Even so, as Johnson says, this is all lenient compared with equivalent rates in New York, where they also pay local income tax.
  • (6) All patients were medication free, and REM latency was explicitly defined using both strict and lenient criteria.
  • (7) That ruling could make it more likely that other lenders will start taking a more lenient view when it comes to older mortgage borrowers.
  • (8) One partial explanation for the sudden drop in admissions may be that Swedish courts have given more lenient sentences for drug offences following a ruling of the country's supreme court in 2011.
  • (9) I would maintain that marking has become more lenient.
  • (10) Will the big names be treated more leniently than the smaller ones?
  • (11) To date, Czechoslovakia has had a fairly lenient attitude toward the sterilization of women; only recently has it been applied to men as well.
  • (12) Furthermore, intrinsically motivated subjects chose higher performance standards than had been demonstrated to them in the lenient-demand condition, and also arranged leaner schedules of self reinforcement over all demand conditions than had been demonstrated to them, compared to extrinsically motivated subjects.
  • (13) "It appears to me the sentence was unduly lenient and the overall criminality was not reflected," he told the court.
  • (14) No prison for Colorado college student who ‘raped a helpless young woman' Read more Despite the guilty verdict by a jury, Judge Patrick Butler decided not to send Wilkerson to prison this week with a ruling that closely resembles the lenient sentencing of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner .
  • (15) Tom Gosling, reward partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "There is a wider question of differences in regulatory approach at the global level creating an uneven playing field, and a risk of geographic arbitrage in favour of jurisdictions that are perceived to be more lenient."
  • (16) He cited Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts, which had an even more lenient policy, allowing criminals out on parole to vote.
  • (17) Anthony Bosch – who choked back tears in court and said the clinic was a legitimate business gone awry – sought a more lenient term because of his cooperation in the investigation, but US District Judge Darrin Gayles refused.
  • (18) External conditions were three demand conditions (stringent, variable, and lenient).
  • (19) Results include the findings that (a) performance is an inverted-U shaped function of exactingness, (b) performance is better under incentives when environments are lenient but not when they are exacting, (c) the interaction between exactingness and incentives does not obtain when an incentives function fails to discriminate sharply between good and bad performance, and (d) when the negative effects of exactingness on performance are eliminated, performance increases with exactingness.
  • (20) "It was a very lenient sentence," said Shahryar Khan, a retired diplomat and a former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, speaking by telephone from Lahore.

Relent


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To become less rigid or hard; to yield; to dissolve; to melt; to deliquesce.
  • (v. i.) To become less severe or intense; to become less hard, harsh, cruel, or the like; to soften in temper; to become more mild and tender; to feel compassion.
  • (v. t.) To slacken; to abate.
  • (v. t.) To soften; to dissolve.
  • (v. t.) To mollify ; to cause to be less harsh or severe.
  • (n.) Stay; stop; delay.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There was no chance of Visca relenting and in the 32nd minute he crossed for Zukanovic, whose weak header was saved easily by Darren Randolph.
  • (2) Anas, a nurse, had wanted her children to stay but she relented and sold her gold jewellery when her son Salim found a way to get to Brazil, where he now has asylum after failing to reach the US.
  • (3) His face was found carved into tree trunks all over Celtic lands and his hold over the early Britons was so powerful that early Christians relented and adopted the green man's image as a force for good and a symbol of new life and renewal.
  • (4) Initially, the Cabinet Office resisted giving details of Nesta's investment saying it was commercially confidential, but later relented following advice from the audit office.
  • (5) But I also take seriously my responsibility to the American people Barack Obama Asked by Republican governors on Monday whether he might relent in the case of a pipeline extension that supporters argue will have negligible impact on greenhouse gas emissions but has been a totemic issue for environmentalists, Obama reportedly told the group it “ain’t gonna happen”.
  • (6) But he'd usually relent and read them by Wednesday."
  • (7) Kim Davis is out of jail – will she relent and issue same-sex marriage licenses?
  • (8) By the time people relent and sign on, they've exhausted every option.
  • (9) When the broadcasters relented and included the Greens, the prime minister suggested that the Democratic Unionist Party should be included.
  • (10) Apple has relented and sweetly smooth MMS implementation is now available.
  • (11) "I am surprised at this decision since China wants to promote openness and the rule of law, and I hope that they will relent and let me in.
  • (12) Fearful of the connections his son had been forming back home, his father reportedly confiscated Abedi’s passport, relenting only when his son told him he was going on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
  • (13) Patrick Bamford signs new Chelsea deal and makes Crystal Palace loan move Read more Mourinho maintains the Premier League champions have dealt with the move for the 21-year-old, which could break the record for an English defender, in the correct manner and he will not relent in his pursuit.
  • (14) Thus, unless factors independent of or complicating the calcium stone disease supervene, the renal insufficiency of treated patients remains mild and relently progressive.
  • (15) When he wouldn't relent, she draped him with a white rosary for safe passage.
  • (16) Miliband relented, and Balls took the exam, including clapping rhythmically, in the formal, unforgiving atmosphere music examiners love to generate.
  • (17) Merkel is apparently in Paris on Monday to thrash this issue out with Sarkozy, just four days ahead of the next EU Summit but Merkel is extremely unlikely to relent.
  • (18) But Cameron was forced to relent and let loose the Eurosceptics in cabinet, who have fanned out to hit the Sunday papers and broadcasts.
  • (19) The Kremlin, whose long slide into autocracy shows no sign of relenting, made deals with several of them, knowing it would be easier to keep them on side than to open up Russia's economy to proper procedures, competition, and fair trade.
  • (20) But he said that it would give Channel 4 more flexibility in how the programming budget was spent, assuming the advertising recession relents.