What's the difference between modest and pompous?

Modest


Definition:

  • (a.) Restraining within due limits of propriety; not forward, bold, boastful, or presumptious; rather retiring than pushing one's self forward; not obstructive; as, a modest youth; a modest man.
  • (a.) Observing the proprieties of the sex; not unwomanly in act or bearing; free from undue familiarity, indecency, or lewdness; decent in speech and demeanor; -- said of a woman.
  • (a.) Evincing modestly in the actor, author, or speaker; not showing presumption; not excessive or extreme; moderate; as, a modest request; modest joy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Incubation with IFN alpha or IFN gamma for 24 h resulted in only modest cytokinetic alterations, and they did not modify the effects of FUra.
  • (2) The active agents modestly improved treadmill exercise duration time until 1 mm ST segment depression (3%), and only propranolol and diltiazem had significant effects.
  • (3) Brown's model, which goes far further than those from any other senior Labour figure, and the modest new income tax powers for Holyrood devised when he was prime minister, edge the party much closer to the quasi-federal plans championed by the Liberal Democrats.
  • (4) The standard varies from modest to lavish – choose carefully and you could be staying in an antique-filled room with your host's paintings on the walls, and breakfasting on the veranda of a tropical garden.
  • (5) Bupropion, in contrast, had a modest effect only in CD-1 mice.
  • (6) These data support a modest role for alpha 1-adrenergic coronary vasoconstriction during exercise but fail to document an additional role for postsynaptic alpha 2-adrenergic coronary vasoconstriction during exercise.
  • (7) Alterations in mean systolic blood pressure appeared to be modest, consisting of a 10 percent decrease from the control level, related to sedation, and a 10 percent rise from baseline during the procedure, associated with a concomitant mild tachycardia.
  • (8) The patient made modest improvement with high-dose intravenous steroids.
  • (9) Modest reductions in renal function as measured by clearances of inulin and p-aminohippurate occurred acutely only in the patients with renal impairment.
  • (10) Although the debate in the US has led to some piecemeal reforms – including the USA Freedom Act and modest policy changes – many of the most intrusive government surveillance programs remain largely intact.
  • (11) Ultimately, both Geffen and Browne turned out to be correct: establishing the pattern for Zevon's career, the albums sold modestly but the critics loved them.
  • (12) Simultaneous metabolic studies of human normal fibrinogen and asialofibrinogen in rabbits revealed only a modest decrease in the half-life of the asialoprotein compared to the intact protein, with no preferential uptake of the asialo-derivative by the liver.
  • (13) Levels of involvement in the program were modest, with only 16% of those screened having over 10 clinical contacts and 24% still involved after 3 months.
  • (14) Testosterone and estrogen administration at low or modest doses to individuals with the capacity to produce GH causes GH production and IGF-I levels to increase.
  • (15) The more modest effect of (n-3) fatty acid supplementation in decreasing LTB4 generation was not due to blockade of the cyclooxygenase pathway.
  • (16) The effect of volume expansion on sodium, calcium and magnesium remaining in the proximal tubule was relatively modest and not affected by furosemide.
  • (17) On the other side of the Atlantic, a more modest, quieter challenger plans to take on the US electric car giant.
  • (18) In conclusion, a zipper technique has been outlined that allows effective continuing drainage of the septic abdomen, permits early diagnosis of organ damage, is rapid and cost effective, minimizes ventilator dependency and gastrointestinal complications, is well tolerated by the patients, and has produced a modest 65 per cent survival rate in the first 34 critically ill patients in whom it was used.
  • (19) In order to improve the modest oral activity of PGE2 as an inhibitor of gastric acid secretion, analogs were prepared and tested orally in histamine-challenged rats.
  • (20) Specific binding of insulin did not differ between control and modestly insulinopenic diabetics but was increased significantly in the severely insulinopenic diabetics.

Pompous


Definition:

  • (a.) Displaying pomp; stately; showy with grandeur; magnificent; as, a pompous procession.
  • (a.) Ostentatious; pretentious; boastful; vainlorious; as, pompous manners; a pompous style.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Leave aside the noxious and pompous view that the views of non-national-security-professionals - whatever that means - should be ignored when it comes to militarism, US foreign policy and war crimes.
  • (2) On last Friday's Radio 4 Today programme , the historian Robert Service played his part to perfection, pompously advising the BBC to "get some sense of proportion".
  • (3) He says that the idea of the corrupt, lying, pompous politician has become "the equivalent of the mother-in-law or Irish joke of the 1970s".
  • (4) As the debate reached its conclusion, Stockwood, dressed grandly in a purple cassock and pompously fondling his crucifix in a way that was devastatingly lampooned by Rowan Atkinson a week later on a Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch, delivered his parting shot of, "You'll get your 30 pieces of silver."
  • (5) She was terrifying but not pompous, and she could be quite playful, quite cosy in a strange way."
  • (6) Auda is more of a problem: his character is portrayed as an unreformed savage who cares only for violence, treasure and his own pompous self-image.
  • (7) Giles Oakley London • In conception and format, it was trite – while being undeservedly pompous and self-esteeming.
  • (8) About three years ago, he was teasing me about something – being thick probably, or making pompous speeches.
  • (9) His chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, was more magnificently pompous, as befits an ex-foreign secretary.
  • (10) Please don't read my pompous views above as referring to the great majority of gallery shows, where dealers display art they hope someone will want to buy for their home, and new collectors are born every week.
  • (11) When those inside the temple are pompous hypocrites, maybe it is the better place to be.
  • (12) Those who actively seek out linguistic slip-ups will correct you with such glee that it makes you doubt whether their commitment to "calling out" bigotry matches their commitment to pompous arseholerly.
  • (13) Chaplin himself wrote about this process: "Sometimes a musician would get pompous with me, and I would cut him short: 'Whatever the melody is, the rest is just a vamp.'
  • (14) I realised that my goal here really is to represent – it sounds super-pompous – how we think and how we associate.
  • (15) "Without wishing to sound pompous, I do more research now than ever.
  • (16) I will leave the public to judge his actions.” Mick Cash, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, said it should be no surprise that his black cab members across London were considering “a boycott of the Tory toff David Mellor over his outrageous, pompous and disgraceful tirade against one of their colleagues”.
  • (17) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – five reasons we're still slightly worried Read more This caped crusader has had a personality upgrade Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Warner Bros The Batman we met in The Lego Movie aways seemed an unlikely candidate for his own solo film, a pompous jerk who was more Flash Thompson than Bruce Wayne.
  • (18) It was as absurd for a Tory MP to demand Abbott's resignation from the shadow cabinet on account of this remark as it was for Ed Miliband to tell her pompously "in no uncertain terms" that it had been "unacceptable".
  • (19) It's pompous twaddle with no relevance to fucking anything."
  • (20) This is all the more surprising since Tolstoy seems to speak freely, in his fiction, with the sort of moralistic-prophetic voice – the voice of a teacher of right and wrong – that lesser writers are obliged to use sparingly, unless they want to sound pompous and didactic.