What's the difference between merciless and wanton?

Merciless


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of mercy; cruel; unsparing; -- said of animate beings, and also, figuratively, of things; as, a merciless tyrant; merciless waves.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Sri Lanka mounted a merciless final assault on the Tamil Tiger insurgency in 2009 .
  • (2) And up there, looming over it all is Zynga, social gaming's Ming the Merciless.
  • (3) He attacked, battened down the hatches on his serve and was merciless in the tie-break, levelling the match with a well-placed volley.
  • (4) Pyongyang reacted angrily when The Interview’s plot first became public and promised a “resolute and merciless” response if it went ahead.
  • (5) Where we already have the electoral numbers, our political vengeance has been merciless against the GOP; witness California after its electoral dalliance with anti-immigrant policies or Mitt Romney’s disastrous 2012 campaign .
  • (6) Gerrard had been mercilessly taunted again by Chelsea’s supporters and he had played as if determined to turn the volume down.
  • (7) But, despite such incidents, many will see the latest episode as some sort of karmic revenge for Letterman's often merciless take on the moral lapses of others.
  • (8) The Stoke supporters mercilessly booed the Welshman’s every touch, presumably for his reluctance to accept Ryan Shawcross’ apology for breaking his leg at the Britannia Stadium six years ago, and there was also some unsavoury and shameful chanting by a section of the home fans, who sang: “Aaron Ramsey, he walks with a limp”.
  • (9) Celeb bombed, and the critics were merciless, so I had wondered if that was why Enfield withdrew from our screens.
  • (10) It was the fasting month of Ramadan and as mercilessly hot as a desert city in high summer could be.
  • (11) Like some of those R-rated comedies that go down very well in the States, they don’t work here and don’t get released.” The Interview stars Rogen and James Franco as two journalists charged with carrying out the killing of Kim Jong-un, a storyline which prompted North Korean officials to complain to the United Nations in July and prompted state media warnings of “merciless retaliation”.
  • (12) With international lenders at the EU and IMF demanding that Athens step up its austerity drive - or risk losing the funding that is keeping its debt-stricken economy afloat -- President Carolos Papoulias told the visiting delegation: "Up until now, we've been receiving a merciless lashing.
  • (13) I’m afraid you’ve lost my trust.” HSBC chiefs face Margaret Hodge at her most merciless Read more She went on: “I really do think that you should consider your position and you should think about resigning and if not, I think the government should sack you.” Fairhead has been a non-executive director of HSBC since 2004, and was made the chair of the audit and risk committee – which bore responsibility for governance and compliance across the global bank – in May 2007.
  • (14) Always a contrived fiction, this sequence juxtaposes a poignant fantasy of a fully fit presenter with the merciless world of hard news.
  • (15) Remember those embarrassing bills for wisteria clearance at the young Conservative leader’s home amid the expenses debacle of 2009, and how these were lopped away by a merciless assault on the more shameless claims of various knights of the shire?
  • (16) Not even the cameras from the media that were capturing the unfolding scene were enough to deter the circus owner from pulling a gun and mercilessly beating us.
  • (17) Sheng Keyi , meanwhile, turns a mercilessly ironic eye on modern Chinese life, particularly the difficulties faced by women in a hypersexualised culture and the insecure economic life of migrant workers.
  • (18) The brief flurry of liberal street protest in 2011 and 2012 was ruthlessly snuffed out by the Kremlin, and many have suggested that, far from a liberal revolution, the most likely revolt in Russia is the “senseless and merciless” Russian uprising of which Alexander Pushkin wrote.
  • (19) In the 13th century the Cathars put up a strong defence of their beliefs and territory against the merciless persecution meted out by the Albigensian crusade.
  • (20) It’s happening to Christians now right across the Middle East and Africa, and the dangers of not speaking up have been made clear since the Paris attacks, when innocent people were gunned down mercilessly while shopping for food for the Shabbat [Jewish Sabbath].

Wanton


Definition:

  • (v. t.) Untrained; undisciplined; unrestrained; hence, loose; free; luxuriant; roving; sportive.
  • (v. t.) Wandering from moral rectitude; perverse; dissolute.
  • (v. t.) Specifically: Deviating from the rules of chastity; lewd; lustful; lascivious; libidinous; lecherous.
  • (v. t.) Reckless; heedless; as, wanton mischief.
  • (n.) A roving, frolicsome thing; a trifler; -- used rarely as a term of endearment.
  • (n.) One brought up without restraint; a pampered pet.
  • (n.) A lewd person; a lascivious man or woman.
  • (v. i.) To rove and ramble without restraint, rule, or limit; to revel; to play loosely; to frolic.
  • (v. i.) To sport in lewdness; to play the wanton; to play lasciviously.
  • (v. t.) To cause to become wanton; also, to waste in wantonness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We simply do whatever nature needs and will work with anyone that wants to help wildlife.” His views might come as a surprise to some of the RSPB’s 1.1 million members, who would have been persuaded by its original pledge “to discourage the wanton destruction of birds”; they would equally have been a surprise to the RSPB’s detractors in the shooting world.
  • (2) He pointed out that the eighth amendment of the US constitution “prohibits the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain through torture, barbarous methods, or methods resulting in a lingering death”.
  • (3) The real offense, for which no one has been charged, is the wanton disregard for human life that Manning exposed.
  • (4) We’re back to those flappers, with their jobs and their knee-length skirts and their dangerous opinions about politics, or the girls of the 1960s destroying the traditional family by wantonly taking the pill.
  • (5) Long said: "This is not an attack on an individual or on a party, but a wanton attack on the democratic process.
  • (6) In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction.
  • (7) The wanton slaughter of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq and the severe and even lethal torture of Afghan detainees generated, at worst, shockingly short jail time for the killers and, usually, little more than letters of reprimand.
  • (8) What distinguishes games from books, or films, is that the dodgy sexual politics and wanton violence of one is used as a stick to bash them all.
  • (9) "The president commiserates with all the families who lost loved ones in the heinous attacks and extends his heartfelt sympathies to all those who suffered injuries or lost their properties during the wanton assaults on Bauchi and Kaduna States," said a statement.
  • (10) But that doesn't mean that halting and reversing the wanton growth of shorthaul flights is an act of class war.
  • (11) Here in Bristol we could use the old railway lines that used to thread their way into the city, before Beeching and Marples ripped them up – another example of wanton government lack of foresight.
  • (12) To the contrary, they are the inevitable by-products of societies that recruit every institution in service of defending even the most wanton abuses by the state.
  • (13) Later at university, there were nice Protestant ladies and wanton atheists; taxpayer-funded Guinness and Spear of Destiny .
  • (14) Three hours of sexual and pharmacological excess, wanton debauchery, unfathomable avarice, gleeful misogyny, extreme narcotic brinksmanship, malfeasance and lawless behaviour is a lot to take, and some have complained of the film's relentlessness, which, if understood in formal terms, I think may be one of its main aims.
  • (15) Humankind must become accountable on a massive scale for the wanton destruction of our collective home.
  • (16) Young children were expected to carry out gruelling domestic chores and were wantonly punished, she says.
  • (17) An influential Communist party journal has compared online rumours to Cultural Revolution-style denunciations and warned of the need to curb "wanton defamation" of authority, as China intensifies its campaign to control social media.
  • (18) What we are seeing in London tonight, the wanton vandalism, smashing of windows, has nothing to do with peaceful protest."
  • (19) On the periphery of all the wanton lust and questionable puns stands Evie (Antonia Thomas), who’s pretty, sweet and has a camera; the holy trinity for chumps like Dylan.
  • (20) Following release of the Mosul video showing wanton destruction of antiquities, there has been a lot of email traffic between Libyans working in archaeology and Arab-world representatives on the major international heritage bodies,” said David Mattingly, a professor at the University of Leicester, who has spent years excavating Roman ruins in Libya.