What's the difference between ruin and tarnish?

Ruin


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of falling or tumbling down; fall.
  • (n.) Such a change of anything as destroys it, or entirely defeats its object, or unfits it for use; destruction; overthrow; as, the ruin of a ship or an army; the ruin of a constitution or a government; the ruin of health or hopes.
  • (n.) That which is fallen down and become worthless from injury or decay; as, his mind is a ruin; especially, in the plural, the remains of a destroyed, dilapidated, or desolate house, fortress, city, or the like.
  • (n.) The state of being dcayed, or of having become ruined or worthless; as, to be in ruins; to go to ruin.
  • (n.) That which promotes injury, decay, or destruction.
  • (n.) To bring to ruin; to cause to fall to pieces and decay; to make to perish; to bring to destruction; to bring to poverty or bankruptcy; to impair seriously; to damage essentially; to overthrow.
  • (v. i.) To fall to ruins; to go to ruin; to become decayed or dilapidated; to perish.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Because they generally have to be positioned on hills to get the maximum benefits of the wind, some complain that they ruin the landscape.
  • (2) Even regional allies disagree with American priorities about Isis, Biddle noted, which is why Turkey continues to bomb Kurds and Saudi Arabia and the UAE arm groups around the region , most notably in Syria but also in the ruins of Yemen .
  • (3) It trickled back to me somehow that, ‘Goddammit, Johnny Depp’s ruining the film!
  • (4) A procedure is described for the rapid determination of putrascine, spermine and spermidine in ruine and whole blood.
  • (5) Hitchcock's attempts to keep Hedren in a gilded cage arguably ruined her career.
  • (6) Conference, five years ago this motion would have ruined my life.
  • (7) But illegal action will only ruin any chance of dialogue with Tehran.
  • (8) The lid is fiddly to fit on to the cup, and smells so strongly of silicone it almost entirely ruins the taste of the coffee if you don’t remove it.
  • (9) In Niki Savva’s book The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government, Credlin has even been compared to Wallis Simpson, a deeply weird analogy.
  • (10) "While the country is sunk in misery, families are ruined and children are growing up in poverty, this guy turns up and we pay €91m for him.
  • (11) Anuraj Sivarajah, online editor of the newspaper, said he was very clear who was to blame for the attacks and arson that has brought the newspaper near financial ruin.
  • (12) In 1995 8,000 people whose lives were ruined by the Montserrat volcano settled in Britain.
  • (13) They belong to the people who built Choquequirao, one of the most remote Inca settlements in the Andes, and were stashed here by the archaeologists who, over the past 20 years, have been slowly freeing the ruins from the cloud forest.
  • (14) Even the avuncular governor of the Irish central bank, Professor Patrick Honohan, was forced to admit that pumping up to €70bn of taxpayers' money into the ruined banks "doesn't score highly on fairness" when he announced the fifth bailout on Thursday.
  • (15) Three thousand cheers for Will Self ( Has English Heritage ruined Stonehenge?
  • (16) But Denton’s attempts to apply extreme openness to others could cost the ruin of his company.
  • (17) His torturers accused him of passing on to British officials information about previous beatings at the hands of state officials and other human rights abuses, to ruin diplomatic relations between the two countries, he said.
  • (18) As Google states, it is definitely in the company’s best interest to get its first smartglass customers to behave, as “breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers”.
  • (19) The notion that Gleeson has lurched from one disaster to another, ruining everything from the Coen brothers' remake of True Grit to Richard Curtis's romcom About Time , seems a pretty unique interpretation of his burgeoning career as a versatile character actor.
  • (20) But there was scepticism over whether the more radical elements on either side would obey the ceasefire, and concern in Kiev and western capitals that the truce would effectively "freeze" the conflict and give Moscow de facto control over the disputed chunk of eastern Ukraine that has been ruined by war this summer.

Tarnish


Definition:

  • (a.) To soil, or change the appearance of, especially by an alternation induced by the air, or by dust, or the like; to diminish, dull, or destroy the luster of; to sully; as, to tarnish a metal; to tarnish gilding; to tarnish the purity of color.
  • (v. i.) To lose luster; to become dull; as, gilding will tarnish in a foul air.
  • (n.) The quality or state of being tarnished; stain; soil; blemish.
  • (n.) A thin film on the surface of a metal, usually due to a slight alteration of the original color; as, the steel tarnish in columbite.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) 'Devastated' Peter Greste calls on Egypt's president to pardon trio Read more “It’s ironic that the conviction was for tarnishing Egypt’s reputation when ... this [case] is what’s tarnished Egypt’s image,” Clooney told BBC News.
  • (2) He used the pre-recorded speech to deny accusations of embezzlement, saying: "They aim to tarnish my reputation and discredit my integrity, my stance, my political and military history during which I worked hard for Egypt and its people in peace and war."
  • (3) After heat treatment, the test piece was examined for compressive strength, compressive shrinkage, hardness, tarnishing and difference in phase.
  • (4) It is little wonder therefore that the circumstances around its death immediately prompted Westminster speculation that the announcement had simply been rushed forward from after the Easter recess in order to put some political punch back into the prime minister's tarnished anti-Ukip immigration initiative.
  • (5) Like many in Abbottabad, Abbasi believes the town has been unfairly tarnished by its association with a terrorist mastermind who lived undetected just a short distance from Pakistan's elite military training school.
  • (6) Paris police launch inquiry after Chelsea fans seen abusing black man on film Read more Handing down the orders at Stratford magistrates court on Wednesday, he said it was a racist incident that tarnished English football.
  • (7) And each of these groups is giving Clinton, or whoever emerges as the Democratic candidate for the 2016 White House race, at least a two-to-one advantage over a Republican party whose brand has been badly tarnished.
  • (8) The heavy price of Goldsmith’s shameless attempts to tarnish a liberal Muslim is that it will become harder, not easier, for Asians to call out unacceptable practices in their own communities.
  • (9) For the 32-month period these prostheses have been in use, no tissue reaction, tarnish, or corrosion had been observed.
  • (10) A conservative, lower-middle-class district bordering the Golden Horn and predominantly inhabited by Turks from the Black Sea coast, Kasimpasa loves Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the powerful prime minister increasingly reviled across Turkey and tarnished internationally.
  • (11) Anglo-Russian relations remain tarnished by the murder of British citizen and Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 with a radioactive isotope.
  • (12) A tarnished airline brand coupled with weak finances can spell doom.
  • (13) That did not work out, but such mis-steps don’t seem to have tarnished the rapper’s brand.
  • (14) Meanwhile, the symbols of their adopted country’s world-beating prowess, from football to cars, look somewhat tarnished.
  • (15) He said it was a racist incident that tarnished English football.
  • (16) The true value of these celebrity paintings: like Picasso's Child with a Dove , which left Britain when the Qatar royal family bought it for £50m, is tarnished by massive sums.
  • (17) The alloys which had a high atomic ratio of Au + Pt + Pd + In + Zn to Ag had higher tarnish resistance.
  • (18) The legacy of this side cannot be tarnished, but for the first real time under Guardiola, they are under threat.
  • (19) Polls over the last year showed Chicagoans growing dissatisfied with Emanuel, with the star power that helped him return to Chicago and become mayor clearly tarnished.
  • (20) Is there any chance the Israelis will let us through, and repair their tarnished reputation?