What's the difference between smug and witty?

Smug


Definition:

  • (a.) Studiously neat or nice, especially in dress; spruce; affectedly precise; smooth and prim.
  • (v. t.) To make smug, or spruce.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout."
  • (2) What's more, his genial stiffness and shy self-awareness give him a kind of awkward dignity compared to the preening smugness of Cruz.
  • (3) It might be worth looking at how others do it, and not smugly concluding that the public likes the NHS the way it is.
  • (4) He is far too astute an analyst of comedy to be unaware of the danger of looking smug and there were sufficient layers of irony and knowing jokes within jokes for the conceit to work.
  • (5) I smiled smugly – there’s nothing like praise from a kindred spirit.
  • (6) And he provided the catalyst that improved the lot of the player in what had become an exceedingly smug game.
  • (7) Our political class is indeed the pinnacle of smug regurgitation.
  • (8) Meanwhile, eco-triumphalists will witter smugly about how the ban will save - what was it again?
  • (9) He had to do more than opt out of the yah-boo , smug sixth-form wordplay of the House of Commons.
  • (10) Dave meanwhile lapsed into his shrill Bullingdon Club persona; the dividing line between self confidence and smugness is gossamer thin for the prime minister.
  • (11) Before a ferociously red crowd, in which the Australian fans, scattered throughout the stadium in little blobs of yellow, struggled to assert themselves in any meaningful way, the Chileans started with their customary disregard for defence, a line of five attackers purring forward with gushing, almost smug intent.
  • (12) Softness and tenderness, wistful ironies” he conceded as blindspots, describing Motown as mere “foot fodder” but having a lot of time for relatively minor practitioners such as Joe Tex , who he saw as “hugely smug” but with “great charm and inventiveness”.
  • (13) The most likely comment to exasperate Serwotka is the assertion that they're fat cats, a smug drain on the public purse: of 301,000 members "we've got 30,000 people earning just above the minimum wage, 100,000 earning less than £15,000 [the average civil service salary is £22,000].
  • (14) Maurice Vassie Deighton, North Yorkshire • If recent history is anything to go by, then Jeremy Corbyn has every chance of being elected prime minister ( Why smart Tories should not be smug about Corbyn , 27 July).
  • (15) Among other things, the novels work as a meditation on America's Calvinist conscience, its strengths and blindnesses, and the way that it moved from fanaticism to smugness in the century after the civil war.
  • (16) It satirises the smug, modernist home-owners often seen in the pages of US interiors magazine Dwell.
  • (17) This kind of smugness is always given short shrift by the elderly.
  • (18) Feminism , according to Moran, is "simply the belief that women should be as free as men – however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be.
  • (19) With incredible complacency, politicians from both sides of parliament basked in the glory and reacted smugly when the US and the eurozone hit a brick wall.
  • (20) They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism.

Witty


Definition:

  • (n.) Possessed of wit; knowing; wise; skillful; judicious; clever; cunning.
  • (n.) Especially, possessing wit or humor; good at repartee; droll; facetious; sometimes, sarcastic; as, a witty remark, poem, and the like.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This House , his witty political drama set in the whips' office of 1970s Westminster, transferred from the National's Cottesloe theatre to the Olivier, following critical acclaim.
  • (2) That merriment is not just tankards and quaintness and mimsy Morris dancing, but a witty, angry and tender fire at the centre of Englishness.
  • (3) Witty's comments came as GSK unveiled lower first half sales and profits, and a further £500m of cost cuts by the end of 2015.
  • (4) We encourage people to speak up if they have concerns" #gsk July 24, 2013 12.29pm BST Witty says this investigation is "quite different" to the whistleblower claims the company recently investigated and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
  • (5) Pauline Kael, when reviewing the film, said, "Jane Fonda has been a charming, witty, nudie cutie in recent years, and now gets a chance at an archetypal character.
  • (6) His works are witty rather than wise, pacey not profound.
  • (7) Mohamedou Ould Slahi: “smart, witty, garrulous, and curiously undamaged” Another team inside the plane dragged me and fastened me on a small and straight seat.
  • (8) While researching his forthcoming book, A History of the World in Twelve Maps , Brotton sometimes brought up the "one-to-one map" idea, from Borges and Carroll, with people at Google, but they didn't find it particularly witty or intriguing.
  • (9) But I do try to find the good in everybody," Parton says perkily, and later proves it by describing Sylvester Stallone – her co-star in the deservedly little-seen 1984 film Rhinestone – as "just a nut, but so witty!".
  • (10) Best known in this country as the author of a large number of witty and provocative books - and as the Reith lecturer in 1966 - Galbraith was professor of economics at Harvard University from 1949 until his retirement in 1975, but was equally well known in the US as a distinguished civil servant and longtime, tireless adviser and campaigner for liberal Democrats and their causes.
  • (11) Critics who saw Budapest at the Berlin film festival, where it premiered this month, have called it "vibrant and imaginative" , "nimblefooted, witty" , and as a sucker for Anderson's stuff since his early days, I'd agree.
  • (12) He duly obliged and the crowd was treated to the first look at Age of Ultron, starting with a witty interchange between the Avengers as each, enjoying a drink and dressed in civilian clothing, tries to lift Thor’s hammer.
  • (13) Witty backed the prime minister’s efforts to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership.
  • (14) In an interview with the Observer , Witty said: "While the chief executive of the company could move, maybe the top 20 directors could move, what about the 16,000 people who work for us?
  • (15) And, in any case, Preston is obviously bright and witty and engaging.
  • (16) There is something very Avaazian about the crisistunity, I come to think, in that it's borrowed something slick and witty from popular culture and re-purposed it for something which used to be called the Greater Good.
  • (17) Sometimes, when stood by the bar, caught in the witty back-and-forth between two strange men, it feels like you're out in bad weather without a hat.
  • (18) Scottish Ballet: The Nutcracker In recent years, Christmas at Scottish Ballet has been defined by Ashley Page’s witty, acerbic re-writes of the 19th century classics.
  • (19) Seen as a warm and witty liberal, he founded the parliamentary bicycle pool and has earned the moniker the "bicycling baronet" (the Youngs featured on a British Rail poster promoting the transport of bicycles by rail in 1982).
  • (20) Witty was optimistic that “ultimately there are going to be some pragmatic decisions made” that would ensure companies were able to attract global talent.