All 10 Uses
cynical
in
Black Boy
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- As a protective mechanism, I developed a terse, cynical mode of speech that rebuffed those who sought to get too close to me.†
Chpt 2.15
- He was as cynical as I was regarding uplift and hope, and we were proud of having escaped what we called the "childhood disease of metaphysical fear."†
Chpt 2.16
- During this cynical period I met a Negro literary group on Chicago's South Side; it was composed of a dozen or more boys and girls, all of whom possessed academic learning, economic freedom, and vague ambitions to write.†
Chpt 2.16
- My cynicism slid from me.†
Chpt 2.17 *cynicism = believing that things usually go poorly and that selfish and insincere
- I was cynical and I would rather have heard a white man say that he hated Negroes, which I could have readily believed, than to have heard him say that he respected Negroes, which wouldhave made me doubt him.†
Chpt 2.18
- My cynicism—which had been my protection against an America that had cast me out—slid from me and, timidly, I began to wonder if a solution of unity was possible.†
Chpt 2.18cynicism = believing that things usually go poorly and that selfish and insincere
- Though I was not a Communist, cynical rivalry had put me in charge of one of the party's leading cultural organizations.†
Chpt 2.18
- I, the chary cynic, the man who had felt that no idea on earth was worthy of self-sacrifice, had publicly identified myself with them, and now their suspicion of me hit me with a terrific impact, froze me within.†
Chpt 2.19cynic = someone who expects the worst -- especially of people (such as expecting them to be selfish and lie)
- You're not cynical, are you, Dick?" he asked.†
Chpt 2.19
- Oppressed for centuries, divided, hopeless, corrupted, misled, they were cynical—as I had once been—and the Communist method of unity had been found historically to be the only means of achieving discipline.†
Chpt 2.19
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cynical) someone who expects the worst -- especially of people (such as expecting them to be selfish and lie)
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)