What's the difference between refuse and relent?

Refuse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deny, as a request, demand, invitation, or command; to decline to do or grant.
  • (v. t.) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the center, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular aligment when troops ar/ about to engage the enemy; as, to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks.
  • (v. t.) To decline to accept; to reject; to deny the request or petition of; as, to refuse a suitor.
  • (v. t.) To disown.
  • (v. i.) To deny compliance; not to comply.
  • (n.) Refusal.
  • (n.) That which is refused or rejected as useless; waste or worthless matter.
  • (a.) Refused; rejected; hence; left as unworthy of acceptance; of no value; worthless.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We were instantly refused entrance by the heavies at the door.
  • (2) There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.
  • (3) Such a science puts men in a couple of scientific laws and suppresses the moment of active doing (accepting or refusing) as a sufficient preassumption of reality.
  • (4) There were no deaths but one refused to have ketamine again.
  • (5) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
  • (6) She successfully appealed against the council’s decision to refuse planning permission, but neighbours have launched a legal challenge to be heard at the high court in June.
  • (7) Tony Abbott has refused to concede that saying Aboriginal people who live in remote communities have made a “lifestyle choice” was a poor choice of words as the father of reconciliation issued a public plea to rebuild relations with Indigenous people.
  • (8) The military is not being honest about the number of men on strike: most of us are refusing to eat.
  • (9) But employers who have followed a fair procedure may have the right to discipline or finally dismiss any smoker who refuses to accept the new rules.
  • (10) Republican presidential hopeful Scott Walker has refused to say whether he believes in the theory of evolution, arguing that it is “a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other”.
  • (11) But in a setback to the UK, Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, refused British entreaties to attend on the grounds that it would not have been treated as equal to the Somali government.
  • (12) Ten patients had been treated by adrenalectomy, one patient by radiotherapy of the hypophysis, and one patient had refused any treatment.
  • (13) What if the court of justice refuses to answer the question?
  • (14) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
  • (15) A small band of shadow cabinet members have lined up to refuse to serve in posts they haven’t even been offered, on the basis of objection to economic policies they clearly haven’t read.
  • (16) The prerequisite for all champions is the refusal to cave in, so City's equaliser with only three minutes remaining was pleasing.
  • (17) Black males with low intentions to use condoms reported significantly more negative attitudes about the use of condoms (eg, using condoms is disgusting) and reacted with more intense anger when their partners asked about previous sexual contacts, when a partner refused sex without a condom, or when they perceived condoms as interfering with foreplay and sexual pleasure.
  • (18) As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to the release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them,” Abbas said.
  • (19) The people who will lose are not the commercial interests, and people with particular vested interests, it’s the people who pay for us, people who love us, the 97% of people who use us each week, there are 46 million people who use us every day.” Hall refused to be drawn on what BBC services would be cut as a result of the funding deal which will result in at least a 10% real terms cut in the BBC’s funding.
  • (20) These letters are also written during a period when Joyce was still smarting from the publishing difficulties of his earlier works Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Gordon Bowker, Joyce’s biographer, agreed: “Joyce’s problem with the UK printers related to the fact that here in those days printers were as much at risk of prosecution on charges of publishing obscenities as were publishers, and would simply refuse to print them.

Relent


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To become less rigid or hard; to yield; to dissolve; to melt; to deliquesce.
  • (v. i.) To become less severe or intense; to become less hard, harsh, cruel, or the like; to soften in temper; to become more mild and tender; to feel compassion.
  • (v. t.) To slacken; to abate.
  • (v. t.) To soften; to dissolve.
  • (v. t.) To mollify ; to cause to be less harsh or severe.
  • (n.) Stay; stop; delay.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) There was no chance of Visca relenting and in the 32nd minute he crossed for Zukanovic, whose weak header was saved easily by Darren Randolph.
  • (2) Anas, a nurse, had wanted her children to stay but she relented and sold her gold jewellery when her son Salim found a way to get to Brazil, where he now has asylum after failing to reach the US.
  • (3) His face was found carved into tree trunks all over Celtic lands and his hold over the early Britons was so powerful that early Christians relented and adopted the green man's image as a force for good and a symbol of new life and renewal.
  • (4) Initially, the Cabinet Office resisted giving details of Nesta's investment saying it was commercially confidential, but later relented following advice from the audit office.
  • (5) But I also take seriously my responsibility to the American people Barack Obama Asked by Republican governors on Monday whether he might relent in the case of a pipeline extension that supporters argue will have negligible impact on greenhouse gas emissions but has been a totemic issue for environmentalists, Obama reportedly told the group it “ain’t gonna happen”.
  • (6) But he'd usually relent and read them by Wednesday."
  • (7) Kim Davis is out of jail – will she relent and issue same-sex marriage licenses?
  • (8) By the time people relent and sign on, they've exhausted every option.
  • (9) When the broadcasters relented and included the Greens, the prime minister suggested that the Democratic Unionist Party should be included.
  • (10) Apple has relented and sweetly smooth MMS implementation is now available.
  • (11) "I am surprised at this decision since China wants to promote openness and the rule of law, and I hope that they will relent and let me in.
  • (12) Fearful of the connections his son had been forming back home, his father reportedly confiscated Abedi’s passport, relenting only when his son told him he was going on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
  • (13) Patrick Bamford signs new Chelsea deal and makes Crystal Palace loan move Read more Mourinho maintains the Premier League champions have dealt with the move for the 21-year-old, which could break the record for an English defender, in the correct manner and he will not relent in his pursuit.
  • (14) Thus, unless factors independent of or complicating the calcium stone disease supervene, the renal insufficiency of treated patients remains mild and relently progressive.
  • (15) When he wouldn't relent, she draped him with a white rosary for safe passage.
  • (16) Miliband relented, and Balls took the exam, including clapping rhythmically, in the formal, unforgiving atmosphere music examiners love to generate.
  • (17) Merkel is apparently in Paris on Monday to thrash this issue out with Sarkozy, just four days ahead of the next EU Summit but Merkel is extremely unlikely to relent.
  • (18) But Cameron was forced to relent and let loose the Eurosceptics in cabinet, who have fanned out to hit the Sunday papers and broadcasts.
  • (19) The Kremlin, whose long slide into autocracy shows no sign of relenting, made deals with several of them, knowing it would be easier to keep them on side than to open up Russia's economy to proper procedures, competition, and fair trade.
  • (20) But he said that it would give Channel 4 more flexibility in how the programming budget was spent, assuming the advertising recession relents.