(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.
Vex
Definition:
(v. t.) To to/s back and forth; to agitate; to disquiet.
(v. t.) To make angry or annoyed by little provocations; to irritate; to plague; to torment; to harass; to afflict; to trouble; to tease.
(v. t.) To twist; to weave.
(v. i.) To be irritated; to fret.
Example Sentences:
(1) De Boer's successor's first tasks will be to keep the US aboard the negotiations and to clear up the vexed question of the legal status of the Copenhagen accord , the deal struck at Copenhagen by a small group but not endorsed by a majority of countries.
(2) There is also the vexed question of what should be the legal form of any Paris agreement, a subject likely to keep negotiators up late into the night at the conference, and some anxiety among the hosts over whether the text of a deal can be formulated in due time.
(3) But the bigger question, the one that has vexed historians, biographers and holocaust experts for eight decades, is why she was there.
(4) Cs (2 mM) reduced diastolic depolarization (DD) at different [Ca]O and in 10.8 mM [Ca]O revealed an oscillatory potential (VOS) and the decay of a prolonged depolarization (Vex).
(5) The past few days have been vexing ones for reporting guidelines, voluntary or legal.
(6) The present data also highlighted the vexed relationship between stress and seizure control, which needs to be further investigated.
(7) Another vexed national question in the coming months will be this one: who is the most worthy winner of BBC Sports Personality of the Year?
(8) Delivery of monoclonal antibodies to solid tumors is a vexing problem that must be solved if these antibodies are to realize their promise in therapy.
(9) Pathologists without considerable experience in the diagnosis of bone tumors find this question especially vexing.
(10) Caffeine (5 mM) abolishes Vos and Ios and increases Vex and Iex (as DOXO does), and adding DOXO slightly increased Vex and Iex.
(11) Posttraumatic joint stiffness is particularly vexing in the small joints.
(12) In this spirit, a vignette is offered from a clinical area in which questions of "health" and "illness" are particularly vexing at present.
(13) Some might argue that our eyes weren't quite on the ball back in '89: never mind the cataclysmic political upheaval in eastern Europe – the results of which still echo around the world – let's devote ourselves to a page concerned with vexed questions such as: why is water wet?
(14) The draft provides scant details on the vexed subject of accountability for emission reduction programmes.
(15) Nowhere was the commission’s balancing act more finely weighted than on the vexed question of bioenergy, which Cañete admitted was “a clear problem”.
(16) The top Chinese negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, said there was also a possibility of advances on the vexed issued of transparency – how to monitor, report and verify each nation's emissions to ensure they are honouring their pledges.
(17) But now it’s Isis who are the insurgents,” leaving the peshmerga with the vexing challenge of defending and holding territory.
(18) On the vexed issue of longer term finance, the Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi presented an offer to reduce developing country demands by 75% to $100bn a year from 2020, in return for guarantees of how the money would be distributed.
(19) Discussed here are some contours of the vexing problem of adequate minority participation in the health professions and a brief discussion of some programs that appear to be working.
(20) After the creed and some Benjamin Britten, and a blessing and a long round of applause, the man charged with holding together the fractious global Anglican communion as it struggles with the vexed issues of women bishops and same-sex marriage processed out of the cathedral and into the bitterly cold spring afternoon.