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Scornful vs Scathing - What's the difference?

scornful | scathing |

As adjectives the difference between scornful and scathing

is that scornful is showing scorn or disrespect; contemptuous while scathing is harshly or bitterly critical.

As a verb scathing is

.

scornful

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Showing scorn or disrespect; contemptuous.
  • *
  • *:Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost obliterated lines engraved there. ¶ ("I never) understood it," she observed, lightly scornful . "What occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? I'm sure I don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."

    • scathing

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • harshly or bitterly critical
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=December 14 , author=Angelique Chrisafis , title=Rachida Dati accuses French PM of sexism and elitism , work=Guardian citation , page= , passage=For months, Dati warned she would refuse to stand aside. Now she has stunned the political class with an open letter to Fillon in Le Monde, a scathing character assassination accusing him of the "lone ambition" of a disillusioned political elite, of doing politics in a way that "never favoured women" and stopping ethnic-minority candidates from progressing at elections. She said he was committing "a sad mistake" in trying to run in Paris.}}
  • harmful or painful; acerbic

    • Verb

    (head)

    • Anagrams

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