What's the difference between supercilious and superior?

Supercilious


Definition:

  • (a.) Lofty with pride; haughty; dictatorial; overbearing; arrogant; as, a supercilious officer; asupercilious air; supercilious behavior.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
  • (2) After former tabloid editor Piers Morgan was fired from CNN , there were warnings that the US media was now poisoned to British accents and supposed superciliousness.
  • (3) But when I saw the advert it occurred to me that it, and that supercilious exclamation mark in particular, could in fact give people an excuse to express their homophobia.
  • (4) A decade later when I met him again in a hotel suite in London, it was more Mona Lisa than Cheshire Cat - coolly supercilious, ultimately indecipherable.
  • (5) It was often veiled, supercilious and sinister, but on screen he made us an offer we couldn't refuse.
  • (6) So the relationship that begins at the Milford railway station (it's two metaphorical stops down the line from Borchester – The Archers began five years after Brief Encounter) with a piece of grit in Laura's eye and Alec's unquestionably clean handkerchief will lead to afternoons together, lunch and a visit to the cinema (their silly movie is called Flames of Passion), a country drive, and an awkward trip to a friend's flat (the supercilious Valentine Dyall).
  • (7) Recently, I have caught myself saying something in everyday conversation that a few years ago would have elicited a cry of “supercilious wanker” from me if I’d heard someone else say it.
  • (8) Brexit, said Putin, was a result of irritation over Britain subsidising weaker economies, and “the British government’s self-assuredness and supercilious attitude to life-changing decisions in their own country and Europe in general”.
  • (9) I was made to regret it almost immediately when I was loudly condemned as a “supercilious prick”.
  • (10) Shimell's character is very supercilious and unsympathetic – he has a Basil Fawlty-esque fit of temper in a restaurant – and it is not easy to tell if this is deliberate, or if Kiarostami thinks Shimell elegant and cerebral.
  • (11) To others, though, he is at his supercilious worst here; floating the idea that, having withdrawn from the union, Scotland, in its beneficence, can turn round and preach to the English about how to deal with the nasty Tories.
  • (12) Their particular brand of upper class snobbery is now so anachronistic it’s simply amusing: in an obituary this week of Deborah , the writer pointed to a list of the late Duchess of Devonshire’s dislikes, which included but was not limited to “the bits of paper that fall out of magazines; female weather forecasters; the words ‘environment’, ‘conservation’ and ‘leisure’; supercilious assistants at makeup counters; dietary fads; skimmed milk; girls with slouching shoulders and Tony Blair.” And then there are the Nazis.
  • (13) You know when you're out walking and you see a party of riders, and they give you a slightly supercilious look?
  • (14) President Barack Obama is often criticised for superciliousness and arrogance.
  • (15) Now usually it would be advisable to ignore such news and treat in the same way as someone telling you that the sun is "hot and yellow", Piers Morgan is "smug and annoying", Katie Hopkins is "snobbish and supercilious" and the Mill is "tired and emotional" — it's just the way of life.

Superior


Definition:

  • (a.) More elevated in place or position; higher; upper; as, the superior limb of the sun; the superior part of an image.
  • (a.) Higher in rank or office; more exalted in dignity; as, a superior officer; a superior degree of nobility.
  • (a.) Higher or greater in excellence; surpassing others in the greatness, or value of any quality; greater in quality or degree; as, a man of superior merit; or of superior bravery.
  • (a.) Beyond the power or influence of; too great or firm to be subdued or affected by; -- with to.
  • (a.) More comprehensive; as a term in classification; as, a genus is superior to a species.
  • (a.) Above the ovary; -- said of parts of the flower which, although normally below the ovary, adhere to it, and so appear to originate from its upper part; also of an ovary when the other floral organs are plainly below it in position, and free from it.
  • (a.) Belonging to the part of an axillary flower which is toward the main stem; posterior.
  • (a.) Pointing toward the apex of the fruit; ascending; -- said of the radicle.
  • (n.) One who is above, or surpasses, another in rank, station, office, age, ability, or merit; one who surpasses in what is desirable; as, Addison has no superior as a writer of pure English.
  • (n.) The head of a monastery, convent, abbey, or the like.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The bank tellers who saw their positions filled by male superiors took special pleasure in going to the bank and keeping them busy.
  • (2) Intravesical BCG is clearly superior to oral BCG, and controlled studies have demonstrated that percutaneous administration is not necessary.
  • (3) This is an easy, safe, and rapid alternative for the emergent treatment of superior vena caval syndrome.
  • (4) The insertions of the sternocleidomastoid, the splenius capitis, the longissimus capitis and the obliquus capitis superior muscles were measured.
  • (5) Long term follow up of extracapsular extraction showed visual results superior to those previously reported for intracapsular extraction.
  • (6) The guanethidine treatment resulted in an 86% absolute reduction in cell number in the superior cervical ganglia of 15 day old rats.
  • (7) The superior mesenteric artery and the abdominal aorta made the mean angle of 35.5 degree in patients with normal left renal vein, the mean angle of 45.4 degrees in those with left renal vein compression without nutcracker phenomenon, and the mean angle of 11.9 degrees in those with nutcracker phenomenon.
  • (8) While the heaviest anterogradely labeled ascending projections were observed to the contralateral ventral posterolateral nucleus of the thalamus, pars oralis (VPLo), efferent projections were also observed to the contralateral ventrolateral thalamic nucleus (VLc) and central lateral (CL) nucleus of the thalamic intralaminar complex, magnocellular (and to a lesser extent parvicellular) red nucleus, nucleus of Darkschewitsch, zona incerta, nucleus of the posterior commissure, lateral intermediate layer and deep layer of the superior colliculus, dorsolateral periaqueductal gray, contralateral nucleus reticularis tegmenti pontis and basilar pontine nuclei (especially dorsal and peduncular), and dorsal (DAO) and medial (MAO) accessory olivary nuclei, ipsilateral lateral (external) cuneate nucleus (LCN) and lateral reticular nucleus (LRN), and to a lesser extent the caudal medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) and caudal nucleus prepositus hypoglossi (NPH), and dorsal medullary raphe.
  • (9) It is usually associated with a left superior caval vein draining into the coronary sinus and is frequently part of a complex congenital malformation of the heart.
  • (10) Following injections of HRP into the apex of the heart, the sinoatrial (SA) nodal region and the ventral wall of the right ventricle, we observed that HRP-labeled sympathetic neurons were localized predominantly in the right stellate ganglia, and to a lesser extent, in the right superior and middle cervical ganglia, and left stellate ganglia.
  • (11) Superior results have been achieved utilizing alternative regimens that include VP-16, the most effective new agent.
  • (12) Both SUC and CIM were superior to placebo (p less than .001).
  • (13) The molar refractivity has been shown to be a superior parameter for the description of the activity of sulphonamides than the sum of electronegativities of atoms making up a heterocyclic substituent in the sulphonamide molecule and molecular weight of the substituent.
  • (14) In this study, the overall effect of amiodarone on ventricular arrhythmias following MI was shown to be superior to that of propranolol.
  • (15) This early elevation in IOP was significantly more pronounced in bilateral superior cervical ganglionectomized (BG) rabbits.
  • (16) Key therapeutic questions are whether beta-lactams can safely replace aminoglycosides for the treatment of gram-negative pneumonia, and whether monotherapy or aminoglycoside and beta-lactam combination antibiotic treatment is superior.
  • (17) Thus, the decreased hyperemic response after arrest suggests a reduced energetic debt with CSC compared with ARC and may indicate superior myocardial protection with CSC.
  • (18) Donor organs were anastomosed parallel to the recipient's heart and right lung, and the superior vena cava inflow was directed into the transplanted heart-left lung block after ligation of the recipient's superior vena cava proximal to the caval anastomosis.
  • (19) Superior memory for the word list was found when the odor present during the relearning session was the same one that had been present at the time of initial learning, thereby demonstrating context-dependent memory.
  • (20) The normal anatomical position of the point of junction of the superficial cerebral veins with the superior sagittal and transverse sinuses of the rat was studied with an analytical mathematical method.