What's the difference between rebut and unanswerable?

Rebut


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To drive or beat back; to repulse.
  • (v. t.) To contradict, meet, or oppose by argument, plea, or countervailing proof.
  • (v. i.) To retire; to recoil.
  • (v. i.) To make, or put in, an answer, as to a plaintiff's surrejoinder.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He did not speculate about when that would be, and he did not rebut Cardin’s claim that it could be next month.
  • (2) Hinton’s defense lawyer wrongly thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to try to rebut the prosecution testimony about the bullets.
  • (3) "Once again, UK data has rebutted the claim that the UK is as bad as some of the eurozone's struggling economies," said ING economist Rob Carnell.
  • (4) However, letters to Hunt from the alliance's lawyers in January and February complaining about the way the process was being handled and issues with fair access were vigorously rebutted.
  • (5) He was at pains to rebut criticism in the western media over the jailing of journalists caught up in the long-running investigation into an attempted military coup and claims that the government has used the case to intimidate sections of the press.
  • (6) In this reply, we rebut his arguments and also describe new pharmacological and other recent data showing unambiguously that the nerve activity we measured was not of postganglionic sympathetic origin.
  • (7) The government has rebutted accusations that a vast free trade deal being negotiated between the EU and the US will act as a cover to privatise the NHS while also watering down food standards and banking regulations.
  • (8) The foreign affairs minister was one of a series of government ministers who sought to rebut concerns about labour movement provisions in the yet-to-be legislated agreement.
  • (9) This observation rebuts the concept of additional perfusion of capillaries which are devoid of plasma flow under resting conditions during coronary vasodilation.
  • (10) Nevertheless, Miliband’s inability to rebut criticisms that are longstanding and widespread is very much something that he has to take responsibility for himself.
  • (11) There is also the problematic fact that postcolonial theory has, in its account of the colonial encounter, focused almost exclusively on the matter of imperial misrepresentation: it largely ignores what non-western cultures were up to in the last two centuries, unless they were seen to be actively engaged in rebutting the coloniser.
  • (12) Rudd has also proposed sweeping changes to the rules governing the election of Labor leaders, in order to rebut Coalition claims that the “faceless” men could again dump him if Labor was voted back in.
  • (13) Schmidt still denies that he is interested in a career in politics; the question was rebutted with a brief "no".
  • (14) Mitt's now trying to rebut the "Let Detroit go bankrupt" line o argument, which is dumb.
  • (15) It was the time of the first intifada and Cholodenko worked for a lawyer in the justice department whose job it was to rebut the charges laid down in reports by the likes of Amnesty International.
  • (16) But, rebutting Hayden, he said: "What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy, even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when its expedient to do so.
  • (17) We cannot let that happen.” “He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia,” she said, adding at another point in the speech: “This isn’t reality television, this is actual reality.” Later, Clinton added: “It is not hard to see how a Trump presidency could lead to a global economic crisis.” The former secretary of state’s speech, staged in front of a wall of US flags, rebutted a foreign policy address Trump made in April in which he promised to save “humanity itself” and “shake the rust off America’s foreign policy”.
  • (18) Chilcot wants to ensure that those criticised are given every opportunity to rebut the criticism.
  • (19) But he added: "To rebut it: I wouldn't like to have been one of those actors who hit stardom quite early on and expected it to continue and was stuck doing scripts that I didn't particularly like just to keep the income up.
  • (20) Most contentiously, the researchers rebutted the opinion of some ministers that it is the expanding number of food banks that is driving up the demand for food parcels.

Unanswerable


Definition:

  • (a.) Not answerable; irrefutable; conclusive; decisive; as, he have an unanswerable argument.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) An array of polling proves that the 50p rate is unanswerably popular: at the time it was introduced, Populus reckoned that 57% of people were in favour, as against only 22% against; and a subsequent poll by YouGov found that keeping the 50p rate would appeal to 88% of uncommitted voters.
  • (2) Although consultation, as an activity for intervention, has achieved considerable popularity among human service professionals and figures prominently in current federal mental health legislation, a basic question still unanswerable is, "Does it work?"
  • (3) Bruce Crawford, the cabinet secretary for strategy in the Scottish government, said it had received an "unanswerable mandate" to stage the referendum at a time of its choosing, "while the Lib Dems lost every … seat in mainland Scotland".
  • (4) But voters in 31 states awarded Trump outright victory, and he steadily amassed an unanswerable lead.
  • (5) Right from the off, when the chancellor's wheeze emerged on the Tory conference platform, it has been sustained by two rhetorical questions that sound unanswerable – why should anyone not working bring in more than the typical £26,000 wage?
  • (6) If we can hit the commission's trajectory simply by staying in neutral then the case for stepping up a gear and aiming for 30% is now unanswerable."
  • (7) The movie might not have continued to inspire this level of devotion without its central, unanswerable mystery about the cause of the time loop; other Hollywood fantasies provide explanations for their supernatural events.
  • (8) From that perspective, the case for GM crops is unanswerable.
  • (9) Long enough for me to realise that was an unanswerable, probably insulting question.
  • (10) JR: I suppose the big question at this point – and maybe it's an unanswerable question – is this: would the voices have got so aggressive and frightening if you'd never told your friend, and never seen that psychiatrist, and never been diagnosed as 'schizophrenic'?
  • (11) "The case is now unanswerable," said Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser at Greenpeace .
  • (12) Throw in cuts to in-work benefits, attacks on pensions and VAT rises, and the rationale for workers to fight back is surely unanswerable.
  • (13) He talked of the awful uncertainty of hindsight; of the unanswerable question of whether they, his parents, could have done more to help; whether should they have intervened or left Martin, by then in his 20s, to make his own decisions.
  • (14) "With this resignation the argument for a general election has gone from being strong and powerful to completely unanswerable.
  • (15) Every question they asked of City was unanswerable during those opening 45 minutes.
  • (16) Like the poet said: “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Really important photographs tell us something that we didn’t know, or didn’t want to know, or wish were not true, in urgent, unanswerable images.
  • (17) A cousin in Balham introduced him to jazz for the first time – the "unanswerable sound", he called it.
  • (18) Whether CEA saves lives is probably unanswerable, but as a skin cover it may reduce incidence of burn wound sepsis.
  • (19) And a spokesperson for the Sham Legion said: “The question about De Mistura’s ceasefire plan is unanswerable at the moment because of the ongoing battles in Aleppo Northern Countryside.
  • (20) I confess I don't dare guess at the answer to that, and it's probably unanswerable, but it's a key question to get right, for the sake of the future.