What's the difference between libel and slur?

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?

Slur


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
  • (v. t.) To disparage; to traduce.
  • (v. t.) To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.
  • (v. t.) To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick.
  • (v. t.) To pronounce indistinctly; as, to slur syllables.
  • (v. t.) To sing or perform in a smooth, gliding style; to connect smoothly in performing, as several notes or tones.
  • (v. t.) To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.
  • (n.) A mark or stain; hence, a slight reproach or disgrace; a stigma; a reproachful intimation; an innuendo.
  • (n.) A trick played upon a person; an imposition.
  • (n.) A mark, thus [/ or /], connecting notes that are to be sung to the same syllable, or made in one continued breath of a wind instrument, or with one stroke of a bow; a tie; a sign of legato.
  • (n.) In knitting machines, a contrivance for depressing the sinkers successively by passing over them.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The following points should be emphasized: Besides the right proximal blocks, which are more frequent, right distal ones can also be diagnosed by the presence of slurred R wave and delayed onset of the intrinsicoid deflection in only some right leads.
  • (2) Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures.
  • (3) Mostly white men surrounded protesters and shouted racist and Islamophobic slurs and anti-Hillary Clinton chants while moving in closer, said Sudip Bhattacharya.
  • (4) Racism has been normalised in Sweden, it’s become okay to say the N-word,” she says, recounting how a man on the subway used the racial slur while shouting and telling her to hurry up.
  • (5) In the youngest animals the presence of an additional peak (between II and III) and the slurring of peaks III and IV were consistent features.
  • (6) The neurological manifestations developed during adolescence with slurred and slow speech with scanning, muscle flaccidity, sings of Trömner and Jacobson, intentional tremor, equilibrium disturbances.
  • (7) The family of an Oklahoma man shot to death outside his home are pointing to a history of criminal charges and racial slurs by the alleged killer.
  • (8) The two men were said to be drunk during the flight when the retired striker was reportedly subjected to racial slurs.
  • (9) In a clip of the video posted on the newspaper’s website, one of the men appears to be heard calling one of the women a “slit eye” in a racist slur.
  • (10) Patrick, his stepson, faced similar racial slurs as officers asked him for the location of illegal guns because, as he recalled an officer saying, “you fuckers are making more money a day than I am”.
  • (11) But even as the city attempted to clean up the mess, another group of at least four San Francisco police officers was exchanging text messages that mocked the community response to the scandal, used racist slurs and denigrated LGBT people.
  • (12) The two men yelled at each other, and Snow apparently used a racial slur, but would not later give the precise word.
  • (13) "Would you have run the article if it had contained similar slurs regarding people of colour or people with disabilities?"
  • (14) The mother, identified only as Joanne, said Goodes should not have singled out her daughter for using the racial slur, and blamed the altercation for the booing and criticism Goodes has faced since.
  • (15) She has also stumbled over her words and slurred her way through several shows in the past, prompting concerns about her health.
  • (16) The 69-year-old business mogul has made a series of slurs against immigrants, including the allegation that Mexico is sending “drug dealers” and “rapists” to the US.
  • (17) The attackers, dressed in dark clothes and wearing masks, had been at the protest hassling people on Monday evening, according to witnesses, who also said they heard them use racial slurs.
  • (18) Because it's a racial slur and – no matter how many millions it spends trying to sanitize it and silence native peoples – the epithet is not, was not, and will not be an honorific.
  • (19) And in response to tabloid-inflated hysteria about an influx of Romanian and Bulgarian welfare-hounds, Johnson cracks a cheap jibe about Transylvanians and tents – an undisguised slur on the Roma.
  • (20) Although he has fiercely rejected claims made by Engelina Tareyeva, a former colleague in Yabloko, that he routinely used "racial slurs", some of his remarks have sailed very close.