What's the difference between scoff and taunt?

Scoff


Definition:

  • (n.) Derision; ridicule; mockery; derisive or mocking expression of scorn, contempt, or reproach.
  • (n.) An object of scorn, mockery, or derision.
  • (n.) To show insolent ridicule or mockery; to manifest contempt by derisive acts or language; -- often with at.
  • (v. t.) To treat or address with derision; to assail scornfully; to mock at.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Lunchtime read: How banter conquered Britain Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Guardian Design Team There are hundreds of banter groups on Facebook, you can eat at restaurants called Scoff & Banter or buy an “Archbishop of Banterbury” T-shirt for £9.99.
  • (2) Mere hypothecation, scoff politicians, rejecting the idea again in parliament yesterday.
  • (3) And does Ofsted really expect to get away with using the “kids today!” scoff as an actual, presentable-to-parliament reason for these embarrassingly high youth unemployment rates?
  • (4) Russia continues to scoff at evidence that Syrian government forces carried out the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun earlier this week.
  • (5) Brooks worries that part of the problem with society is that we have become conditioned to scoff the marshmallow.
  • (6) Penny Wong scoffs at 'entertaining but erratic' Barnaby Joyce leading National party Read more The governor of the Reserve Bank Glenn Stevens said at the time there were “few things less likely than Australia defaulting on its sovereign debt”.
  • (7) Rolf scoffs at those who say the Fight for 15, which the SEIU has underwritten, has failed at its goals of unionizing McDonald’s and getting it to adopt a $15 minimum.
  • (8) Clegg will insist that the Lib Dems have already replaced Labour as the country's leading "progressive" party and scoff at Tory pretensions to the same label.
  • (9) Heavily bandaged and unable to walk, she scoffs at the US ambassador's talk of a thorough investigation of the Ahuas raid.
  • (10) Rodgers scoffs at papers from US military colleges branding them a strategic threat and a Honduran government claim linking maras to al-Qaida.
  • (11) Although, of course, the easiest thing would simply to be British about all this and scoff.
  • (12) The Castrol Index, for the mercifully uninitiated, is of course the nonsense ranking scheme cooked up by some bods at Fifa's Castle Greyskull to give people even more of a reason to scoff at them, which is always grand.
  • (13) "You can't scoff at sewing and it's practicality," asserts Dave Montez.
  • (14) Sceptics may scoff, and results of an attempt to extract DNA and match it to descendants are not due until Christmas, but Thompson is adamant that the bones now resting in a safe in the archaeology and ancient history department of Leicester University are those of the last Plantagenet, Richard III , who rode out of Leicester on the morning of 22 August 1485 a king, and came back a naked corpse slung over the pommel of a horse.
  • (15) Presented with official estimates of how many immigrants are in the country illegally, a common response is to scoff.
  • (16) Morrissey scoffs at Vanessa Redgrave's celebrity humanitarianism in his autobiography.
  • (17) I used to scoff at the simplicity of equating onscreen violence with its real-world equivalent.
  • (18) Liberals may scoff, pundits may shake their heads, but Palin herself clearly still wants some form of political life.
  • (19) His opposite number scoffs at the forecasts and promises his tweaks would be far superior.
  • (20) Some might call such a day 'The Millennium', but America shies away from the socialist solution, while the rest of the world scoffs but votes with its wallets to adopt our culture.

Taunt


Definition:

  • (a.) Very high or tall; as, a ship with taunt masts.
  • (v. t.) To reproach with severe or insulting words; to revile; to upbraid; to jeer at; to flout.
  • (n.) Upbraiding language; bitter or sarcastic reproach; insulting invective.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Brown made mincemeat of a succession of shadow chancellors, taunting them with the contrast between the strong growth and healthy public finances under Labour and the humiliation visited upon John Major's government on Black Wednesday.
  • (2) In his keynote speech in Manchester , Ed Miliband taunted the prime minister for lying awake at night worrying not about the future of the United Kingdom but rather the United Kingdom Independence party.
  • (3) Like her bolder aunt Marine, the timid Maréchal-Le Pen complained that she suffered greatly from taunts at school that her grandad was a “fascist”.
  • (4) Moreover, are schoolchildren thoughtlessly taunting each other with slang such as: "That's just straight"?
  • (5) So it will have been a wrench for Jez, and his embattled entourage, to have to “cave in”, as the Guardian’s report put it, and suspend the MP from the party after David Cameron (who really should leave the rough stuff to the rough end of the trade) had taunted him at PMQs for not acting sooner when the Guido Fawkes blog republished her ugly comments and the Mail on Sunday got out its trumpet.
  • (6) The first task of the new government was to allay those fears, to reassure the 27 that when Farage turned up at the European parliamen t after the referendum, like a drunk taunting an ex-wife at a cocktail party, he did not speak for Britain.
  • (7) One detainee I spoke to told me of racist taunting and abuse by guards, and boredom.
  • (8) I’ve got no doubt that some of these people in Abbott’s government hope that something goes wrong domestically – that they can taunt a Muslim into doing something,” he said.
  • (9) Gerrard had been mercilessly taunted again by Chelsea’s supporters and he had played as if determined to turn the volume down.
  • (10) From violence to verbal taunts, abusive dating behavior is pervasive among America’s adolescents, according to a new, federally funded survey.
  • (11) The internet activist group Anonymous has responded to Twitter taunts from the Ku Klux Klan by taking over its US Twitter account.
  • (12) The colossal tarpaulin roof had actually been opened and closed regularly throughout the day, as if taunting those fans who could not attend the rescheduled game, as the locals sought to dry the surface so there was an irony this game kicked off with autumnal sunshine pouring through the concourse under the canopy.
  • (13) Although much of the abuse centred on the taunts about the children's disabilities, police failed to recognise it as a hate crime rather than simple antisocial behaviour, which would have made it a far higher priority.
  • (14) But more serious trouble flared at the site of a burned convenience store where dozens of youths, some with covered faces, ripped up street signs and taunted police.
  • (15) She said she refuses to let anyone inside the room, and sweeps it for cameras and “booby traps.” She said she is taunted daily about the videos, which are still online.
  • (16) If that pattern is repeated, Labour will be taunted over 2008 in the elections of 2020, 2025 and 2030.
  • (17) The video appeared to show vulnerable residents being pinned down, slapped, doused in water and taunted.
  • (18) Convoys that try to get out of here must run the gauntlet of taunting Christian mobs.
  • (19) He was one of the greatest defenders of his era, and one of the most taunted.
  • (20) So the decision by Ed Miliband to face down Tory taunts of being the party of welfare and launch Labour's conference last weekend with a pledge to ban the hated cut is a welcome recognition of its human costs.