What's the difference between mischief and puckishness?

Mischief


Definition:

  • (n.) Harm; damage; esp., disarrangement of order; trouble or vexation caused by human agency or by some living being, intentionally or not; often, calamity, mishap; trivial evil caused by thoughtlessness, or in sport.
  • (n.) Cause of trouble or vexation; trouble.
  • (v. t.) To do harm to.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They want to send a very clear message to China that they are serious about this.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest This image from the US navy purportedly shows Chinese dredging vessels in the waters around Mischief reef in the disputed Spratly archipelago in May 2015.
  • (2) Steering the debate through these turbulent waters with more than his usual sense of mischief was David Dimbleby .
  • (3) And he was not above a spot of mischief on that score, imagining perhaps - and despite the prime minster's known stance – a time of closer European integration.
  • (4) | Howard W French Read more In the South China Sea, China has, by massive dredging operations, turned submerged reefs with names out of the novels of Joseph Conrad – Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross Reef – into artificial islands, and is completing a 3,000m runway on Fiery Cross.
  • (5) Nelson said: "Against the cacophony of the 24-hour news era, there has never been a greater need for what the Spectator offers: wit, style, mischief, elegance of thought and independence of opinion.
  • (6) Their carefully judged mischief lightened the whole mixture like stiffly beaten egg-whites.
  • (7) Campaigning before the June election Demirtaş had been full of mischief, needling Erdoğan, making fun of the AKP’s gaffes.
  • (8) He had a chirpy self-confidence even then and a sense of humour, but what made him attractive to a journalist was his enthusiasm for mischief.
  • (9) Did an implied "come up and see my target seat" let a political supremo make passes at women well out of his league – or did they make it up and risk all for mischief?
  • (10) He wrote with mischief and a sometimes acid eye about the theatre of politics.
  • (11) There is a new thirst for characters, for mischief-makers and rascals, for politicians whose mistakes make them more accessible to the rest of us.
  • (12) If they are not rascally Tories making mischief or communist infiltrators, then they are leftie romantics, their heads in a dwam and full of ideals incompatible with modern, monetarist Britain.
  • (13) The anecdote describes both his ego and his attachment to mischief-making – and it might even be true.
  • (14) Some people have tried to make mischief by claiming that the pupil premium is not additional money.
  • (15) 'Positive points are difficult to find today,' he said in that gnomic way of his that falls between irony and mischief.
  • (16) In the fevered Daily Mail version, this fact suggests a nefarious and hyperactive court, up to mischief and rejoicing in 'overruling' national authorities, better to promote the interests of sex offenders and the homicidal.
  • (17) US manoeuvre in South China Sea leaves little wiggle room with China Read more The guided-missile destroyer reportedly received orders to travel within 12 nautical miles (22.2km, or 13.8 miles) of the Spratlys’ Mischief and Subi reefs, which are at the heart of a controversial Chinese island building campaign that has soured ties between Washington and Beijing.
  • (18) I suspect that messrs Fry and Connolly – who grew up watching this man segue from gar- landed stage-thesp to tireless campaigner (Stonewall, women's and children's rights) to Hollywood catnip to that dreadful position for anyone with a fine remaining sense of mischief: being on the cusp of national-treasure status – were equally conscious of the company they were in.
  • (19) The introduction of Olsen in place of the sad and utterly disorientated McGrath for the last 15 minutes provided no answers as Oxford's willingness and determination to push wide down the flanks where Phillips was always a source of mischief only served to underline the frailty to United's current defensive framework.
  • (20) Gizewski could be accused of eccentricity (there is also a long letter to Social Democrat party members on his site, explaining why they should have voted against a coalition with Merkel's party), and perhaps of wilful mischief – he could have just linked to one of the thousands of other scans of Mein Kampf you can find on Google.

Puckishness


Definition:

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Over time, the name has lost its punny puckishness much as the movement has steadily shifted from a proudly anacharical – even populist – response and rebellion within the GOP to a smoothly functioning alternative to it.
  • (2) As a novelist, she was preoccupied by the intersection between power and personality, which she represented, in what became trademark fashion, in a variety of puckish settings.
  • (3) Asked how Russia's oligarchs are bearing up, Lebedev is almost puckishly cheerful.
  • (4) Lars Von Trier is known for being unpredictable, quixotic, puckish and deliberately provocative.
  • (5) Here, as he rolls a joint to the disapproval of his married friend's square wife, he has Peter's insolence and puckishness.
  • (6) His face was puckish but kind, and flickered between reflection and mischief.
  • (7) Joe is a prototypical working class American male – stout, thick, jovial, moralistic, but with a puckish curiosity about how the other half lives.
  • (8) Jack is lanky, friendly and restless; Jade shorter, puckish, with a ponytail.
  • (9) I’ve hit a wall here.” The Republican presidential primary lost Lindsey Graham, its only voice of reason | Lucia Graves Read more Despite an accomplished résumé and a puckish sense of humor , Graham was never able to gain any traction in the Republican primary.
  • (10) Photograph: Karen Robinson Puckish Mathieu Amalric caught the pundits by surprise when he scooped the Cannes director prize for his 2010 burlesque caper On Tour.
  • (11) In recent years, she has dominated Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre: as the shape-shifting fairy in Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker ; as Strindberg’s fallen aristocrat Miss Julie ; as self-deluding alcoholic Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire ; and as a puckish but ferocious Hamlet , all directed by Sarah Frankcom .
  • (12) There are fewer flashes of the puckish humour these days and he is more cautious in his pronouncements, but he is nonetheless saying more than the government would like, and recent actions by his supporters speak still louder.
  • (13) The warmth of public affection for "the arch" was evident on Thursday amid the otherwise austere grandeur of the 19th-century St George's Cathedral , once a bastion of resistance to apartheid where the puckish Tutu rallied hearts and minds.
  • (14) From Warhol 's stars to the early incarnations of David Bowie , from the puckish sexual innocence of Marc Bolan to the studied posing of photographer Nan Goldin 's transvestite friends, from Iggy Pop 's self-destructiveness to Alice Cooper 's cultivation of a dangerous persona, the sense that the self is something to be constantly reinvented and performed remains a kind of lesson, however trite and contrived some of those performances might now appear.
  • (15) He seems more relaxed and puckish now, weaving though the streets of his adopted home town.
  • (16) Having resigned a couple of times before, I know how puckish lobby hacks might choose to misconstrue the departure.

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