What's the difference between poised and smug?

Poised


Definition:

  • (imp. & p. p.) of Poise

Example Sentences:

  • (1) With the advent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), molecular biology is at last poised to enter the clinical microbiology laboratory.
  • (2) Greece standoff over €86bn bailout eases after Brussels deal Read more But while the bailout chiefs are poised to agree on a route map, the journey for the Greek people seems no less long and arduous.
  • (3) The fluidity of myelin subfractions and of pig brain cortical membranes was estimated; the microviscosity of heavy myelin (5.4 poises) and of cortical membranes (5.1 poises) was similar and less than that of medium (7.8 poises) and light (8.2 poises) myelin.
  • (4) Manchester United poised to trigger Pedro’s £22m Barcelona release clause Read more Van Gaal wants to strengthen in two areas of the team before the transfer deadline.
  • (5) Control PBL membranes at 37 degrees C exhibited a microviscosity (eta) equal to 1.89 poise (P).
  • (6) If that suggests that Norwegian and Australian voters are poised to reward these centre-left incumbents for their management, think again.
  • (7) Lieutenant General Abdel Wahab al-Saadi said his forces secured the largely agricultural southern neighbourhood of Naymiya, under cover of US-led coalition airstrikes, and are poised to enter the main city.
  • (8) Espírito Santo Financial markets regained some poise on Friday as fears abated about the potential spread of problems at one of Portugal's biggest banks.
  • (9) The Bank said in its quarterly inflation report last month that Brexit poised the most significant threat to the UK’s financial stability.
  • (10) Law is now poised to launch seperate legal proceedings against the paper.
  • (11) Alex Neil’s side belied their newly promoted status with a calm, poised assurance and incision, epitomised by Robbie Brady and the excellent Nathan Redmond.
  • (12) Congress was poised to lose power in Delhi and the major states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
  • (13) Libyan government forces are poised to attack rebels blockading key oil ports this weekend in an offensive that risks splitting the country apart.
  • (14) With Planned Parenthood poised to take center stage in the spending bill fight, women’s groups have warned that threatening to defund the organization is a “losing strategy” that will have repercussions come election day.
  • (15) Ellman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If Network Rail decide to close part of the system down at a busy time of year, they have to be absolutely sure it’s going to work as planned and it is going to reopen as planned.” But she declined to criticise Mark Carne, chief executive of Network Rail, who is poised to receive a bonus of up to £135,000 and who was on holiday during the engineering works.
  • (16) Using two methods of footprinting in vivo, we have determined that PUT3 protein is poised at the promoters of the genes encoding these enzymes and that proline-mediated induction modulates the activity of constitutively bound PUT3.
  • (17) Despite the marauding excellence of the captain, Philip Lahm, and the reflexes and calmed poise of the goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, Germany's weakness is defence.
  • (18) With the advent of better theories on language and reading, and better methods for assessing the structure and function of living human brains and for determining genetic transmission, dyslexia is now poised to become a focal concern of cognitive neuroscience and genetic research.
  • (19) It could be that wearables are poised for a tsunami of success.
  • (20) Announcing that £38bn of troublesome loans would be ringfenced within the bank, the new chief executive Ross McEwan heralded a "resetting" of the often fraught relationship with the Treasury – owner of 81% of the shares – and the Bank of England, which regulates the bank and is poised to impose tougher rules on capital.

Smug


Definition:

  • (a.) Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim.
  • (v. t.) To make smug, or spruce.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout."
  • (2) What's more, his genial stiffness and shy self-awareness give him a kind of awkward dignity compared to the preening smugness of Cruz.
  • (3) It might be worth looking at how others do it, and not smugly concluding that the public likes the NHS the way it is.
  • (4) He is far too astute an analyst of comedy to be unaware of the danger of looking smug and there were sufficient layers of irony and knowing jokes within jokes for the conceit to work.
  • (5) I smiled smugly – there’s nothing like praise from a kindred spirit.
  • (6) And he provided the catalyst that improved the lot of the player in what had become an exceedingly smug game.
  • (7) Our political class is indeed the pinnacle of smug regurgitation.
  • (8) Meanwhile, eco-triumphalists will witter smugly about how the ban will save - what was it again?
  • (9) He had to do more than opt out of the yah-boo , smug sixth-form wordplay of the House of Commons.
  • (10) Dave meanwhile lapsed into his shrill Bullingdon Club persona; the dividing line between self confidence and smugness is gossamer thin for the prime minister.
  • (11) Before a ferociously red crowd, in which the Australian fans, scattered throughout the stadium in little blobs of yellow, struggled to assert themselves in any meaningful way, the Chileans started with their customary disregard for defence, a line of five attackers purring forward with gushing, almost smug intent.
  • (12) Softness and tenderness, wistful ironies” he conceded as blindspots, describing Motown as mere “foot fodder” but having a lot of time for relatively minor practitioners such as Joe Tex , who he saw as “hugely smug” but with “great charm and inventiveness”.
  • (13) The most likely comment to exasperate Serwotka is the assertion that they're fat cats, a smug drain on the public purse: of 301,000 members "we've got 30,000 people earning just above the minimum wage, 100,000 earning less than £15,000 [the average civil service salary is £22,000].
  • (14) Maurice Vassie Deighton, North Yorkshire • If recent history is anything to go by, then Jeremy Corbyn has every chance of being elected prime minister ( Why smart Tories should not be smug about Corbyn , 27 July).
  • (15) Among other things, the novels work as a meditation on America's Calvinist conscience, its strengths and blindnesses, and the way that it moved from fanaticism to smugness in the century after the civil war.
  • (16) It satirises the smug, modernist home-owners often seen in the pages of US interiors magazine Dwell.
  • (17) This kind of smugness is always given short shrift by the elderly.
  • (18) Feminism , according to Moran, is "simply the belief that women should be as free as men – however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be.
  • (19) With incredible complacency, politicians from both sides of parliament basked in the glory and reacted smugly when the US and the eurozone hit a brick wall.
  • (20) They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism.