What's the difference between taunt and vaunt?

Taunt


Definition:

  • (a.) Very high or tall; as, a ship with taunt masts.
  • (v. t.) To reproach with severe or insulting words; to revile; to upbraid; to jeer at; to flout.
  • (n.) Upbraiding language; bitter or sarcastic reproach; insulting invective.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Brown made mincemeat of a succession of shadow chancellors, taunting them with the contrast between the strong growth and healthy public finances under Labour and the humiliation visited upon John Major's government on Black Wednesday.
  • (2) In his keynote speech in Manchester , Ed Miliband taunted the prime minister for lying awake at night worrying not about the future of the United Kingdom but rather the United Kingdom Independence party.
  • (3) Like her bolder aunt Marine, the timid Maréchal-Le Pen complained that she suffered greatly from taunts at school that her grandad was a “fascist”.
  • (4) Moreover, are schoolchildren thoughtlessly taunting each other with slang such as: "That's just straight"?
  • (5) So it will have been a wrench for Jez, and his embattled entourage, to have to “cave in”, as the Guardian’s report put it, and suspend the MP from the party after David Cameron (who really should leave the rough stuff to the rough end of the trade) had taunted him at PMQs for not acting sooner when the Guido Fawkes blog republished her ugly comments and the Mail on Sunday got out its trumpet.
  • (6) The first task of the new government was to allay those fears, to reassure the 27 that when Farage turned up at the European parliamen t after the referendum, like a drunk taunting an ex-wife at a cocktail party, he did not speak for Britain.
  • (7) One detainee I spoke to told me of racist taunting and abuse by guards, and boredom.
  • (8) I’ve got no doubt that some of these people in Abbott’s government hope that something goes wrong domestically – that they can taunt a Muslim into doing something,” he said.
  • (9) Gerrard had been mercilessly taunted again by Chelsea’s supporters and he had played as if determined to turn the volume down.
  • (10) From violence to verbal taunts, abusive dating behavior is pervasive among America’s adolescents, according to a new, federally funded survey.
  • (11) The internet activist group Anonymous has responded to Twitter taunts from the Ku Klux Klan by taking over its US Twitter account.
  • (12) The colossal tarpaulin roof had actually been opened and closed regularly throughout the day, as if taunting those fans who could not attend the rescheduled game, as the locals sought to dry the surface so there was an irony this game kicked off with autumnal sunshine pouring through the concourse under the canopy.
  • (13) Although much of the abuse centred on the taunts about the children's disabilities, police failed to recognise it as a hate crime rather than simple antisocial behaviour, which would have made it a far higher priority.
  • (14) But more serious trouble flared at the site of a burned convenience store where dozens of youths, some with covered faces, ripped up street signs and taunted police.
  • (15) She said she refuses to let anyone inside the room, and sweeps it for cameras and “booby traps.” She said she is taunted daily about the videos, which are still online.
  • (16) If that pattern is repeated, Labour will be taunted over 2008 in the elections of 2020, 2025 and 2030.
  • (17) The video appeared to show vulnerable residents being pinned down, slapped, doused in water and taunted.
  • (18) Convoys that try to get out of here must run the gauntlet of taunting Christian mobs.
  • (19) He was one of the greatest defenders of his era, and one of the most taunted.
  • (20) So the decision by Ed Miliband to face down Tory taunts of being the party of welfare and launch Labour's conference last weekend with a pledge to ban the hated cut is a welcome recognition of its human costs.

Vaunt


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To boast; to make a vain display of one's own worth, attainments, decorations, or the like; to talk ostentatiously; to brag.
  • (v. t.) To boast of; to make a vain display of; to display with ostentation.
  • (n.) A vain display of what one is, or has, or has done; ostentation from vanity; a boast; a brag.
  • (n.) The first part.
  • (v. t.) To put forward; to display.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Despite Facebook's size and reach, and its much-vaunted role in the short-lived Arab spring , there are reasons for thinking that Twitter may be the more important service for the future of the public sphere – that is, the space in which democracies conduct public discussion.
  • (2) But the squeeze on living standards also cited has been exacerbated by the chancellor's January VAT rise, and the Bank clearly sets little store by his much-vaunted "plan for growth".
  • (3) Those Lords resisting an elected chamber had better prove their vaunted independence by kicking up an almighty stink at being denied any voice in the main cuts legislation whizzing through Westminster.
  • (4) Well he didn’t and it’s not – and Clinton’s staff had better get to shoring up that vaunted Southern firewall before South Carolinians feel the Bern, too.
  • (5) The show stars Berry as a jobbing actor with vaunting ambition who gets into surreal scrapes, with a supporting cast including Doon Mackichan as his agent and Robert Bathurst as his housemate.
  • (6) Rather than identifying Americans’ easy and even vaunted access to firearms as a leading cause of mass shootings, gun rights advocates would rather blame gun violence on mental illness, bad parenting and other factors other than the cheap and easy availability of guns.
  • (7) News of the confrontation broke a day before the arrival of Xi Jinping , the Chinese president, in India, and has undermined official statements vaunting the goodwill between the two nations.
  • (8) Copé courted the party's right wing by vaunting the merits of an "uninhibited" UMP addressing subjects such as "anti-white racism".
  • (9) England were 10 points ahead in the third quarter and comfortably in control against opponents who had barely mounted a significant attack and whose vaunted defence was pulled apart with surprising ease at times.
  • (10) No amount of "investment pots" and "three-fold rises in apprenticeships" will make a difference to the much-vaunted growth and enterprise.
  • (11) The last Labour government received its wake-up call during the 2007-08 banking and commodity crisis, when global raw food prices doubled in months, as did oil, on which the much vaunted success of 20th century food policy depends.
  • (12) We have the opportunity to build a more resilient, sustainable economy provides a wide ranging number of policy and regulatory insights which will help lay the foundations of the much vaunted, slow to arrive, green economy.” Karl Harder from Abundance Generation said: “The Carbon Bubble is something the public must wake up to, and we must start divesting – fast if we are to avoid what could be the biggest financial crisis we have ever seen.
  • (13) The number of "City-type" jobs will finish the year at around 288,000 says the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), a head count that would be on a par with 1998 and well below the peak of 354,000 seen 2007 which was the high water mark for the UK's once vaunted financial services sector.
  • (14) A high-profile glitch in ITV's much-vaunted FA Cup coverage - which meant that millions of viewers missed the winning goal in a Merseyside derby - may have been a transmission fault, but could all too easily be seen as symbolic of a broadcaster with its eye off the ball.
  • (15) That increase came despite the much-vaunted switch from coal to shale gas – with its lower emissions than coal when burned for energy – that has dominated the US's energy economy in recent years.
  • (16) Waddoup emphasised it is in fact the Russian middle class, not the much-vaunted oligarchs, who are driving the overseas property market.
  • (17) Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Revenant director Alejandro González Iñárritu: ‘So much pain was implanted in that time’ – video interview The much-vaunted advance of streaming sites Netflix and Amazon looks also to have been thwarted, with neither of their much-touted films, Beasts of No Nation (Netflix) and Chi-Raq (Amazon) finding Oscar favour.
  • (18) Not even Mad Men, with its much-vaunted gorgeous wardrobe and much-interviewed costume designer Janie Bryant , has had any effect on how people actually dress.
  • (19) Despite the Australian government’s diversions, the rotation has much broader significance; it is a key node in America’s much vaunted “pivot to Asia”, a once-in-a-generation strategic shift through which the US seeks to maintain its regional military dominance in the face of a rising China.
  • (20) David Noble, chief executive officer at the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply said: "The much-vaunted march of the makers has finally materialised with the UK manufacturing sector's output growth hitting a 29-month high in July.