What's the difference between modest and promise?

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.

Promise


Definition:

  • (a.) In general, a declaration, written or verbal, made by one person to another, which binds the person who makes it to do, or to forbear to do, a specified act; a declaration which gives to the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act.
  • (a.) An engagement by one person to another, either in words or in writing, but properly not under seal, for the performance or nonperformance of some particular thing. The word promise is used to denote the mere engagement of a person, without regard to the consideration for it, or the corresponding duty of the party to whom it is made.
  • (a.) That which causes hope, expectation, or assurance; especially, that which affords expectation of future distinction; as, a youth of great promise.
  • (a.) Bestowal, fulfillment, or grant of what is promised.
  • (v. t.) To engage to do, give, make, or to refrain from doing, giving, or making, or the like; to covenant; to engage; as, to promise a visit; to promise a cessation of hostilities; to promise the payment of money.
  • (v. t.) To afford reason to expect; to cause hope or assurance of; as, the clouds promise rain.
  • (v. t.) To make declaration of or give assurance of, as some benefit to be conferred; to pledge or engage to bestow; as, the proprietors promised large tracts of land; the city promised a reward.
  • (v. i.) To give assurance by a promise, or binding declaration.
  • (v. i.) To afford hopes or expectation; to give ground to expect good; rarely, to give reason to expect evil.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Yet the Tory promise of fiscal rectitude prevailed in England Alexander had been in charge of Labour’s election strategy, but he could not strategise a victory over a 20-year-old Scottish nationalist who has not yet taken her finals.
  • (2) The HTCA is promising as a potential tool for studying the biology of tumors.
  • (3) David Cameron last night hit out at his fellow world leaders after the G8 dropped the promise to meet the historic aid commitments made at Gleneagles in 2005 from this year's summit communique.
  • (4) The success in these two infertile patients who had already undergone lengthy psychotherapy is promising.
  • (5) Measuring this value therefore is a very promising procedure.
  • (6) The Coalition promises to add more misery to their lives.
  • (7) Meanwhile Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, waiting anxiously for news of the scale of the Labour advance in his first nationwide electoral test, will urge the electorate not to be duped by the promise of a coalition mark 2, predicting sham concessions by the Conservatives .
  • (8) John Lewis’s marketing, advertising and reputation are all built on their promises of good customer services, and it is a large part of what still drives people to their stores despite cheaper online outlets.
  • (9) On the basis of reports in the literature and of our own clinical experience it appears that melanocyte inhibiting factor (MIF) is a very promising therapeutic agent in the management of Parkinson's disease.
  • (10) Since the employment of microwave energy for defrosting biological tissues and for microwave-aided diagnosis in cryosurgery is very promising, the problem of ensuring the match between the contact antennas (applicators) and the frozen biological object has become a pressing one.
  • (11) The 20-25 year-old cohort was found to yield the most promising results; however, a statistical difference was not found to exist using the volume or area.
  • (12) The arrest of the Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian and his journalist wife, Yeganeh Salehi, as well as a photographer and her partner, is a brutal reminder of the distance between President Hassan Rouhani’s reforming promises and his willingness to act.
  • (13) The use of a new ultraviolet laser combined with a holographic grating spectrograph promises to increase the number of fluorescing species that can be detected simultaneously.
  • (14) So is the mock courtroom promising “justice and fairness”.
  • (15) But that promise was beginning to startle the markets, which admire Monti’s appetite for austerity and fear the free spending and anti-European views of some Italian politicians.
  • (16) Healthbars such as Nakd fit this category and promise to deliver one of your five a day, based on the quantity of freeze-dried date paste used.
  • (17) The most promising method was chemoradiotherapy using multifractionation of a daily dose of irradiation, the 4-year survival rate of 20% being achieved.
  • (18) Trials of these therapeutic schemes promise a higher efficacy of the therapeutic measures for gastroesophageal reflux.
  • (19) The glory lay in the defiance, although the outcome of the tie scarcely looks promising for Arsenal when the return at Camp Nou next Tuesday is borne in mind.
  • (20) One of the big sticking points is cash – with rich countries so far failing to live up to promise to mobilise $100bn a year by 2020 for climate finance .