What's the difference between scuttle and undermine?

Scuttle


Definition:

  • (n.) A broad, shallow basket.
  • (n.) A wide-mouthed vessel for holding coal: a coal hod.
  • (v. i.) To run with affected precipitation; to hurry; to bustle; to scuddle.
  • (n.) A quick pace; a short run.
  • (n.) A small opening in an outside wall or covering, furnished with a lid.
  • (n.) A small opening or hatchway in the deck of a ship, large enough to admit a man, and with a lid for covering it, also, a like hole in the side or bottom of a ship.
  • (n.) An opening in the roof of a house, with a lid.
  • (n.) The lid or door which covers or closes an opening in a roof, wall, or the like.
  • (v. t.) To cut a hole or holes through the bottom, deck, or sides of (as of a ship), for any purpose.
  • (v. t.) To sink by making holes through the bottom of; as, to scuttle a ship.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The government was not aware of, nor is it interested in, what Secretary Kerry announced, which represents a desire to scuttle peace efforts by trying to reach an agreement with the Houthis apart from the government,” Mekhlafi wrote on his official Twitter page.
  • (2) They can be more direct when Giroud is on the pitch, and more creative when Griezmann scuttles around the attacking third.
  • (3) Built up at the end of the 19th century to provide large family homes for white-collar workers travelling to the City on the new railway, by the 1930s those homes were being turned into lodging houses, places for single tenants to watch the rain, listen to the mice scuttle, and hang themselves from the ornamental ceiling rose.
  • (4) The subsequent collapse of AbbVie’s planned £34bn takeover of the FTSE 100 firm Shire – the biggest to be scuttled by the White House’s clampdown on inversions – showed that the “tax inversion risk, quite frankly, has become a reality”, he said.
  • (5) And never going anywhere near the goal, scuttling along the ground for a goal kick.
  • (6) The deal is the biggest to be scuttled by the White House’s clampdown on so-called tax inversions by US companies buying overseas to secure a lower tax rate.
  • (7) Republicans have thus far had little power to scuttle the agreement, reached last week between six world powers and Iran after nearly two years of negotiations and designed to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
  • (8) Boxer described the Republicans’ letter as “bizarre, inappropriate” and a “desperate ploy to scuttle a comprehensive agreement” that she said is “in the best interests of the United States, Israel and the world”.
  • (9) Over its 60 minutes, it scuttles from Africa to Haiti, where it accuses the Clintons of “disaster capitalism”, to Latin America, India and Russia.
  • (10) The tight-lipped Brady read out her oath of allegiance and scuttled off, leaving the money shot to Baroness Trumpington.
  • (11) This move would very likely scuttle the current six-month agreement, end negotiations toward a comprehensive settlement , and put us back on the path to war.
  • (12) If there is a deal, it will be very costly for Congress to scuttle.
  • (13) Ruined, lost, burnt, scuttled rigs were healing on the ocean floor and coming back.
  • (14) The amendment left the government facing the prospect of scuttling its own legislation to give the tax office greater powers to stop global companies using “artificial or contrived arrangements” to avoid tax obligations.
  • (15) The Journal reported on Tuesday that not only did Israel spy on Americans negotiating with Iran, but they gave that information to Republicans in Congress, in an attempt to scuttle the deal.
  • (16) For instance, in his speech, Jeb called for strengthening Egypt, the sclerotic autocracy the United States propped up for decades and whose torture and repression birthed Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood (out from under whose robes al-Qaida scuttled into the world); its current president took power in a coup and is hardly known for his weakness on anything but human rights and press freedoms .
  • (17) The ball is played into a giant gap between Ferdinand and Jones, where Silva latches on to it and scuttles goalwards.
  • (18) The burst of violence was brief – maybe 15 seconds – just long enough for an adrenaline spike before the storyline jumped back to the present day, where a cockroach was scuttling along a countertop in a quiet, sunlit room.
  • (19) The referee, Neil Swarbrick, ignored the penalty appeals while Mourinho scuttled off to the manager's room to watch a rerun on television before returning pitchside to make his view clear to the fourth official.
  • (20) The UK recently implemented a new data retention regime which replaced a 2009 European law scuttled by the European court of justice on privacy grounds.

Undermine


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To excavate the earth beneath, or the part of, especially for the purpose of causing to fall or be overthrown; to form a mine under; to sap; as, to undermine a wall.
  • (v. t.) Fig.: To remove the foundation or support of by clandestine means; to ruin in an underhand way; as, to undermine reputation; to undermine the constitution of the state.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Their efforts will include blocking the NSA from undermining encryption and barring other law enforcement agencies from collecting US data in bulk.
  • (2) And any Labour commitment on spending is fatally undermined by their deficit amnesia.” Davey widened the attack on the Tories, following a public row this week between Clegg and Theresa May over the “snooper’s charter”, by accusing his cabinet colleague Eric Pickles of coming close to abusing his powers by blocking new onshore developments against the wishes of some local councils.
  • (3) Chadwick felt that Customs and Trading Standards needed to continue their war on illegal tobacco – if not, efforts to tackle smoking could be undermined.
  • (4) But for decades now there has been a systematic undermining of it [the NHS’s] core values.
  • (5) The government also faced considerable international political pressure, with the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, calling publicly on the government to "provide full redress to the victims, including fair and adequate compensation", and writing privately to David Cameron, along with two former special rapporteurs, to warn that the government's position was undermining its moral authority across the world.
  • (6) Like the doctor who makes a decision to operate without consulting the patient, I’m diminishing your autonomy by undermining it.
  • (7) There, the US Joint Commission, an independent, non-profit organisation that accredits healthcare organisations and programmes has issued a standard on “behaviours that undermine a culture of safety” to tackle “intimidating and disruptive behaviour at work”.
  • (8) Group B meningococcal vaccine consisting of the natural complex of specific polysaccharide and outer membrane protein (OMP) has been shown to be moderately reactogenic, safe with respect to the effect of undermining tolerance to human brain tissue antigens and to produce no allergization of humans.
  • (9) The end of the cold war and a reshaping of the threats faced by the UK had undermined the logic of nuclear deterrence strategy, he said.
  • (10) Then Greece has another chance.” But the intervention by the IMF will undermine EU leaders who argue Greece must submit to a fresh round of austerity measures to release funds for debt repayments.
  • (11) Entitled Jobs, Justice and Equity, the report warned that growing inequality, marginalisation and disenfranchisement are threatening Africa's prospects and undermining the foundations of its recent success.
  • (12) Umunna said: "Where you have pay awards that bear no relation to performance, but also can be beyond what a company can sustain, it really undermines trust in the whole system.
  • (13) The home team's defence had been undermined by naivety and it was in evidence when Stepanov, already on a yellow card for a foul on McGeady and having been played into trouble, lunged for the ball only to be beaten to it by Keane.
  • (14) The home secretary has been concerned that British involvement in the UN refugee programme would become an open-ended commitment that risked undermining the Tories' commitment to reduce net migration to the UK to tens of thousands by 2015.
  • (15) The Public Accounts committee (PAC) said on Thursday that the "chaos" surrounding the failure of G4S to provide enough staff for the Olympics had undermined confidence in Games organisers.
  • (16) Moreover, uncertainty about the resolution of these fiscal issues could itself undermine business and household confidence," said Bernanke.
  • (17) The clashes between the moralistic Levin and his friend Oblonsky, sometimes affectionate, sometimes angry, and Levin's linkage of modernity to Oblonsky's attitudes – that social mores are to be worked around and subordinated to pleasure, that families are base camps for off-base nooky – undermine one possible reading of Anna Karenina , in which Anna is a martyr in the struggle for the modern sexual freedoms that we take for granted, taken down by the hypocritical conservative elite to which she, her lover and her husband belong.
  • (18) James Cleverly, MP for Braintree, who supported Johnson’s aborted leadership bid before backing May, said joking about him risked undermining the foreign secretary.
  • (19) These effects of governmental restrictions on abortion do indeed interfere with the obstetrician's basic goal of providing optimal care for the patient and undermine their efforts to improve maternal and infant health.
  • (20) Poor crossing undermined Liverpool in the first leg, Klopp had claimed, but the flaw was remedied quickly in the return.