half-cynical

• “Does the President understand that compromising with cynics can lead to a half-cynical outcome?”

  RJ Eskow: Base to Obama: Come In, Please

• “Henry provides some helpful "Honeymooners" analysis ( "Gleason ... had rooted the Kramden character ... in his own half-cynical, half-slushy view of life"), but his reporting on the business aspects of Gleason's career is even better.”

  Newsweek: The Haunted Honeymooner

• “The most shameless greed, the most sickening industrial atrocities, the most appalling public scandals are exposed, but a half-cynical and wholly indifferent public passes them by with hardly a shrug of the shoulders; and they are lost in the medley of events.”

  THE GREAT AMERICAN SIN IS APATHY

• “Maddelena, rather coarse and hard and repellent, declaiming her words in a loud, half-cynical voice, falling on the breast of the”

  Twilight in Italy

• “With a half-cynical smile, Lorn looks at the glass, then concentrates on Maran.”

  The Magi'i Of Cyador

• “Even Billy's sense of humor was unstirred by the half-cynical sympathy of the night-clerk's gaze; Billy didn't feel a laugh anywhere within him.”

  The Palace of Darkened Windows

• “He stood for a moment gazing into vacancy with a half-tender, half-cynical smile on his lips.”

  The Making of a Soul

• “Courtland's spine as he watched, his habitual half-cynical smile of amusement still lying unconsciously about his lips, while a new respect for the country student was being born in his heart.”

  The Witness

• “He spoke in his old half-sarcastic, half-cynical way, but a feeble, gasping voice, that made an effect of contrast, as of the tragic face espied behind the grinning mask.”

  My Little Lady

• “Rooke -- Rooke, with his curious fascination and detached, half-cynical outlook on life, his beautiful ideals and -- Nan's inner self flinched from the acknowledgment -- his frequent fallings-short of them.”

  The Moon out of Reach

Show 10 more examples...