What's the difference between scoff and vilify?

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.

Vilify


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make vile; to debase; to degrade; to disgrace.
  • (v. t.) To degrade or debase by report; to defame; to traduce; to calumniate.
  • (v. t.) To treat as vile; to despise.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Social workers are blamed and vilified, but we should be proud of what we do Read more “We have six seats for 11 people,” says Sarah Grade*, a children and families social worker based in south London.
  • (2) Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.
  • (3) What if the ad vilified African Americans, or Jews, or any other group for which public denigration is less permissible?
  • (4) As campaigns director for the pressure group, Oxley spent years vilifying government spending – with a special assault on development.
  • (5) Vilified, prosecuted, but – in the court of public opinion – ultimately vindicated: this is what happens to the heroes of democracy.
  • (6) David Wall: "Mark van Bommel has been wrongly vilified and miscast as a serial fouler.
  • (7) Some are starting to vilify and insult the disappeared students and demonise their parents and their demands,” said Hernández.
  • (8) Mark Field, the Conservative MP for the City of London and Westminster , said Hester had been "vilified" and warned that the intense row would put the best candidates off running the majority state-owned bank in the future.
  • (9) John Kerry , the US secretary of state, is vilified for continuing to insist that only negotiations can end the conflict – while simultaneously sidestepping the central question of Assad’s future – in line with Putin’s position.
  • (10) We are resigned to being blamed and vilified for the actions of any Muslim anywhere in the world.
  • (11) Instead, vilify and humiliate anybody who challenges – however meekly – the status quo.
  • (12) I was vilified, relentlessly, over 33 days, with over 800 hate emails ...
  • (13) His reputation was destroyed and he was vilified, he says.
  • (14) Barnaby Joyce defends halal after Coalition MPs express concern Read more “It is against the law to vilify Jews and it is not politically correct to denigrate blacks or gays.
  • (15) He remains popular despite efforts by Muslim groups to vilify him and is seen as the frontrunner in the election, though many voters are angry with him for evicting large numbers from slums to modernise Jakarta.
  • (16) Jayne Ozanne, a prominent campaigner for LGBT equality within the Anglican church, said: “Jeffrey is already a bishop in many of our eyes – he has been the ‘chief pastor’ to those of us who have felt discriminated against and vilified for the sake of our sexuality.
  • (17) Though he loves sport, he is now sworn off attending NFL matches at the MetLife stadium after attending a Jets v Titans game with his girlfriend and being “vilified from the parking lot to my seat for wearing a scarf”.
  • (18) Instead, we are vilified and made out to be money-grubbing if we complain about our working conditions.
  • (19) While ministers vilify people on benefits ( Freud sorry for comment about disabled people , 15 October), we urge everyone who thinks this is wrong to stand up for benefit justice.
  • (20) For decades they have been arbitrarily detained, denied education and livelihood, harassed, vilified in the media, and executed.