What's the difference between slavish and vassal?

Slavish


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to slaves; such as becomes or befits a slave; servile; excessively laborious; as, a slavish life; a slavish dependance on the great.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) To organise society as an individualistic war of one against another was barbaric, while the other models, slavishly following the rules of one religion or one supreme leader, denied freedom.
  • (2) "But it's good for our relationship and for world affairs that the United Kingdom is in support so far of the major foreign policy initiatives of the Obama administration, not in any slavish way, but we are in support of them," Hague said.
  • (3) But one has a right to demand what purpose it fulfils," wrote the Times's critic, who felt that Bond's "blockishly naturalistic piece, full of dead domestic longueurs and slavishly literal bawdry", would "supply valuable ammunition to those who attack modern drama as half-baked, gratuitously violent and squalid".
  • (4) Apart from a few diehards, it will be hard to mourn the defeat in 2010 of a political party that lost its moral bearings in its bid to woo middle England, slavishly reflecting back what it believed this narrow constituency wanted to hear.
  • (5) Clegg told the Foreign Correspondents' Association in London last month: "I think it's sometimes rather embarrassing the way Conservative and Labour politicians talk in this kind of slavish way about the 'special relationship'.
  • (6) There is an inability to break with the slavish, neoliberal worship of that abstract totem, the national economy.
  • (7) There are better comparisons for a “slavishly dependent” relationship.
  • (8) The time is ripe for nursing actively to take advantage of the capacities and potentials of these tools, which slavishly and untiringly carry out tasks and relay information that can contribute to the well-being of patients and the advancement of nursing.
  • (9) He's not a slavish disciple of markets, or small government (although fiscal circumstances and periodic stiffening from economic dries within the Liberal party may make him something of a latterday convert on this score at least).
  • (10) And the Nauru files unveil how conditions in the camps are clinically euphemised for the outside world: critical incidents, in which refugees have attempted to kill themselves, or are raped or assaulted, are downgraded to the classifications “major” or “minor”, ensuring that Wilson – the security subcontractor on the island – won’t be fined for failing to report them in time; doctors’ orders that someone be moved for urgent medical treatment are overruled by a department slavishly determined to uphold a policy, regardless of medical consequence.
  • (11) They're not slavish to the lyrics rulebook, so you'll never catch me singing 'Oh baby, baby yeah'.
  • (12) One wonders why only 20% of Americans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim , considering the overwhelming evidence conclusively proving his slavish allegiance to Islam and utter disregard for Christianity.
  • (13) They despised Bond's characters, his "slavishly literal bawdry", the lack of artistry in his writing.
  • (14) He went on: I think it's sometimes rather embarrassing the way Conservative and Labour politicians talk in this kind of slavish way about the special relationship.
  • (15) "And adidas, Nike, Puma etc slavishly going along with it.
  • (16) As a veteran critic of the academy model, I can’t deny a smidgeon of satisfaction at hearing concerns about centralisation, patchy quality, loss of freedom, reduction in parent choice and the anti-democratic nature of coercion coming from the mouths of people who have slavishly supported this wrong-headed policy for the past 10 years.
  • (17) But the young players who have followed his instructions so slavishly – so much so that one or two commentators compared BVB to a cult with Klopp as the spiritual leader – are now a little older, perhaps a little wiser but maybe a little slower as well.
  • (18) Emmet, meanwhile, must learn to stop slavishly following "the instructions", improvise and think the unthinkable.
  • (19) Of course, some fear a slavishly pro-SNP daily paper will be a McPravda – reprinting SNP press releases, praising every aspect of Scottish government policy and turning off open-minded readers.
  • (20) The monument hails him as “the scourge of corrupt and slavish times, full of vice and tyrants”.

Vassal


Definition:

  • (n.) The grantee of a fief, feud, or fee; one who holds land of superior, and who vows fidelity and homage to him; a feudatory; a feudal tenant.
  • (n.) A subject; a dependent; a servant; a slave.
  • (a.) Resembling a vassal; slavish; servile.
  • (v. t.) To treat as a vassal; to subject to control; to enslave.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A eurozone nakedly dominated by one state, Germany, enforcing destructive austerity on its vassals with such brutality, can have no enduring legitimacy.
  • (2) Data previously obtained (Tartakoff, A.M., and P. Vassalli.
  • (3) Does it occur to you that this process is totalitarian and that you behave as if the hundreds of thousands of teachers, parents, students and academics involved in education are your vassals?
  • (4) Another significant reason that Kenyan forces may be trying to create in Somalia a vassal state – or "buffer zone", as the Kenyan government prefers to call it – is to protect its own projects.
  • (5) The disputed subtropical archipelago lies between Japan and Taiwan, and in the course of its history was a vassal state of China , paying tribute for years before coming under Japanese sovereignty.
  • (6) They pointed out that the kingdom had previously been a Chinese vassal state, adding that the ruling Qing dynasty had been too weak to resist Japan's advance.
  • (7) He said such a situation would fail to give the sovereignty over laws and borders that people wanted through the leave vote, he said, adding: “To adopt the Norwegian situation would be to become a vassal state, because you actually end up paying money into the EU budget but you have less control over the regulations than you do now with a seat round the table.” The question of the single market is opening up another potential divide for Labour after Corbyn also insisted the UK would have to leave the grouping when Brexit takes place.
  • (8) Farm subsidies are the 21st century equivalent of feudal aid: the taxes medieval vassals were forced to pay their lords for the privilege of being sat upon.
  • (9) Gardiner also used the interview to claim that the UK would become a “vassal state” if it tried to replicate Norway, which has unfettered access to single market through its membership of the European Economic Area.
  • (10) The party believed Scotland was theirs for keeps, that voters could go nowhere else (whoops); and, in turn, Westminster Labour saw Scottish Labour as its vassal, too.
  • (11) We now want to focus also on cultural tourism, valorising our archaeological sites like Carthage, El Jam and the Bardo National Museum, where the richest collection of Roman mosaics in the world is kept.” Much of the compound was designed by and for the Beys, vassal-kings who ruled the area on behalf of the Ottoman empire from the early 18th century.
  • (12) Measurements of leukocyte enzymes confirm the findings of Vassalli et al.
  • (13) It wasn't all wrath and fury – although Putin made sure to point out that the US feared Russia's geographical size and its nuclear arsenal and "didn't want allies, but vassals".
  • (14) Here, Benedita Rocha, Pierre Vassalli and Delphine Guy-Grand discuss the rules of selection of extrathymic T cells, assess the possible role of these cells in the defence of epithelial integrity and their potential role in autoimmune disease.
  • (15) Editors, two of whose journalists had been jailed at the time of the scandal concerning the Soviet spy John Vassall, were reluctant to cross the Macmillan government again.
  • (16) The participants include not just practicing architects – such as the French duo Lacaton & Vassal, masterminds of the barely-there Palais de Tokyo in Paris – but also artists (like Pedro Reyes) and hybrid outfits such as the Turner Prize-nominated collective Assemble.
  • (17) Several cell types display binding sites for [125I]urokinase (Vassalli, J.-D., D. Baccino, D. Belin.

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