What's the difference between riotous and rowdy?

Riotous


Definition:

  • (a.) Involving, or engaging in, riot; wanton; unrestrained; luxurious.
  • (a.) Partaking of the nature of an unlawful assembly or its acts; seditious.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Afternoon Delights doesn't have anything approaching a mission statement – it's just two middle-aged men arsing about, frankly – but its gleeful anarchism can be riotously funny: witness the pair as free runners, declaring "war against the urban environment", or their magnificently coiffed Rock'n'Rollers, with the aid of subtitles, showing off their moves on the streets of Ashford, Kent.
  • (2) Shakespeare's Globe, 30–31 May I, Cinna Tim Crouch's one-man reimaginings of the plays, intended for young audiences, are riotous.
  • (3) Judging from your recent tweets, you had quite a riotous time at the Radio Times party last night?
  • (4) This led directly to Briers working with Branagh on many subsequent projects: as a perhaps too likeable Malvolio ("My best part, and I know it," he said) in an otherwise wintry Twelfth Night at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, in 1987, and on a world tour with the Renaissance company as a ropey King Lear (the set really was a mass of ropes, the production dubbed "String Lear") and a sagacious, though not riotously funny, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
  • (5) The first is a normal one; the others are disorderly and riotous, up to the point of foreing the discontinuance of academic activities for several months.
  • (6) The film is fast-paced and riotous and represents a dire warning about eating Mexican food before attending a wedding dress fitting.
  • (7) Hip Hop Karaoke every Thursday at The Social, London and at Shipping Forecast, Liverpool, 20 February; Limelight, Belfast, 8 March, hiphopkaraoke.co.uk Rebel Bingo Facebook Twitter Pinterest Once called The Underground Rebel Bingo Club, the riotous night of number yelling and covering yourself in daubers has had to drop the “underground” part of its name, presumably because it’s gone stratospheric.
  • (8) MySpace was riotous, vulgar and slightly weird – partly because it allowed users to decorate their pages by adding customised HTML code.
  • (9) Of the 229 people detained as part of Operation Dulcet – the huge drive to bring lawbreakers to justice – 174 have been charged with offences including riotous assembly, affray, unlawful assembly, assault on police and criminal damage.
  • (10) She is also the muse and favourite collaborator of composers from Gerald Barry to Pierre Boulez , from Henri Dutilleux to Michel van der Aa , and was magnetic as a hysterically imperious crockery-chucking Cecily Cardew in Barry's riotous The Importance of Being Earnest , and as the coloratura coquette she created for his The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant at English National Opera.
  • (11) The judge ruled that losses claimed did "arise out of the injury to and destruction of the warehouse and injury to, theft of or destruction of property within the warehouse, by persons riotously and tumultuously assembled" within the meaning of the 1886 act.
  • (12) Comparisons are cruel but Scolari's Chelsea have as yet offered only glimpses of their riotous best at a ground where they had previously proved imperious.
  • (13) However, hidden Soho gem Boi Box is my top tip, with its small family of drag kings putting on riotous monthly performances at She Bar.
  • (14) I used to go on holiday with my friend Jessica and her family and, in among riotous games of whist and races on the beach, I remember her, after a tearful row over a packet of biscuits that had been unfairly distributed, slamming the bedroom door and hurling herself on to the bottom bunk.
  • (15) The time had come for his brand of racy and riotous comedy.
  • (16) The film had brought him nothing but trouble in its time, but now here it was in its uncut glory and the audience were on their feet giving Russell a riotous standing ovation.
  • (17) I believe in God, everything I see is part of God, but not in that way.” Still, even during the riotous hedonism of the Studio 54 era, Mas P’s fear of God remained hammered into her.
  • (18) The famous Scottish Divided Self, our Jekyll and Hyde complex, often simply involves a swing between riotously emphatic tartan cliches and real self-doubt.
  • (19) Suggestive "slo-mo" shots of young women enjoying the eroticised rituals of one of America's student rites of passage – the riotous spring vacation – may suggest Korine is straying dangerously close to a teen exploitation movie.
  • (20) The relaxation of censorship encouraged the riotous reproduction of visual satire, from political cartoons to mockery of manners and morals.

Rowdy


Definition:

  • (n.) One who engages in rows, or noisy quarrels; a ruffianly fellow.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A rowdy fringe took to raiding liquor stores, spraying graffiti and flaunting marijuana.
  • (2) Sure enough, the rowdy crowd in the Fox News audience gave him a lusty boo - the loudest of a rambunctious night and maybe of the entire primary season so far - while Gingrich called him "utterly irrational" for questioning the manner of Bin Laden's killing.
  • (3) On Sunday rowdy crowds, waving Chinese flags, surrounded the government’s headquarters in a show of support for Beijing’s unprecedented decision, criticised by pro-democracy activists and legal experts as a massive blow to Hong Kong’s judicial independence.
  • (4) Chile, backed by their rousing and rowdy red sea of fans, knew they needed to win because of Holland’s superior goal difference.
  • (5) It's not a rowdy place – think the cocktail cognoscenti trading tales over Rolling Stones classics – so come to expand your palate (but squeeze your wallet!).
  • (6) "I went to see Brazil play Sweden in the Silverdome in Detroit in 1994 and despite the presence of rowdy Brazilians, the atmosphere was flat.
  • (7) He had absolute control of a very rowdy crowd without pandering to them at all, and was so delightfully silly that it actually turned them into a pleasant bunch of people.
  • (8) Yesterday, the first session back after half-term break (rowdiness isn't the only thing that makes parliament seem like school), David Cameron welcomed the fact that Miliband had adopted a consensual style: "I thought I might miss Punch and Judy, but this is refreshing!"
  • (9) As he watched the rowdy march pass, Jason Rose cheered in support.
  • (10) Lord Justice Leveson joined in, like the headmaster walking in on a rowdy classroom.
  • (11) In Fairplay we passed up the grill at McCall’s Park Bar – a rowdy tavern packed with hunters and cowboys – in favour of spaghetti at the Valiton Hotel .
  • (12) It is two minutes from the nearest bus stop but the drunks and rowdies never seemed to find it.
  • (13) The chants ranged from innocuous (drinking beer and not wanting to return to work on Monday) to sexist, to outright racist (“I’d rather be a Paki than a grass”), in particular directed towards someone who I can only assume contacted the train manager in relation to the rowdy behaviour of the fans.” Another witness, who wished to remain anonymous, said the fans were not wearing Chelsea colours but were chanting “about how they’d just won the League Cup and how they’re top of the league”.
  • (14) The funniest heckle I’ve ever had At a chain comedy club notorious for rowdy stags and hens, a group of 14 stags decided to turn my set into a Q&A session.
  • (15) The secret service's reputation for rowdy behaviour was reinforced in April 2012 in the runup to Obama's visit to the Caribbean resort of Cartagena in Colombia, where 13 agents and officers were accused of carousing with female foreign nationals at a hotel where they were staying before the president's arrival.
  • (16) It’s special for us to play in this country,” said Zabaleta of the hordes of rowdy supporters that have followed them around Brazil.
  • (17) Candy Crowley, the moderator at Tuesday night's presidential debate, is coming under intense criticism from Romney supporters for the way she intervened in the rowdy dispute between the two presidential candidates over Libya .
  • (18) And the best of Phife’s verses always tended to be based in rowdy, bawdy expression.
  • (19) Until recently, Belgrade was more likely to be visited by younger travellers interrailing around Europe, looking to enjoy its rowdy nightlife, than those out for a city break.
  • (20) "I have the impression from watching Question Time that audiences have got much more rowdy in recent years.