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Appropriate vs Effective - What's the difference?

appropriate | effective |

As adjectives the difference between appropriate and effective

is that appropriate is set apart for a particular use or person; reserved while effective is having the power to produce a required effect or effects.

As a verb appropriate

is to make suitable; to suit.

As a noun effective is

a soldier fit for duty.

appropriate

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (obsolete) Set apart for a particular use or person; reserved.
  • Hence, belonging peculiarly; peculiar; suitable; fit; proper.
  • The headmaster wondered what an appropriate measure would be to make the pupil behave better.
  • * (Beilby Porteus)
  • in its strict and appropriate meaning
  • * (Edward Stillingfleet)
  • appropriate acts of divine worship
  • * (John Locke)
  • It is not at all times easy to find words appropriate to express our ideas.
  • Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper.
  • I don't think it was appropriate for the cashier to tell me out loud in front of all those people at the check-out that my hair-piece looked like it was falling out of place.
    While it is not considered appropriate for a professor to date his student, there is no such concern once the semester has ended.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011
  • , date=November 10 , author=Jeremy Wilson , title= England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report , work=Telegraph citation , page= , passage=With such focus from within the footballing community this week on Remembrance Sunday, there was something appropriate about Colchester being the venue for last night’s game. Troops from the garrison town formed a guard of honour for both sets of players, who emerged for the national anthem with poppies proudly stitched into their tracksuit jackets. }}
    Synonyms
    * (suited for) apt, felicitous, fitting, suitable
    Antonyms
    * (all senses) inappropriate
    Derived terms
    * appropriateness

    Verb

    (appropriat)
  • (archaic) To make suitable; to suit.
  • (William Paley)
  • To take to oneself in exclusion of others; to claim or use as by an exclusive right.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=We made an odd party before the arrival of the Ten, particularly when the Celebrity dropped in for lunch or dinner. He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.}}
  • To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, in exclusion of all others; with to'' or ''for .
  • * 2012 , The Washington Post, David Nakamura and Tom Hamburger, Put armed police in every school, NRA urges
  • “I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation,” LaPierre said.
  • (transitive, British, ecclesiastical, legal) To annex, as a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property.
  • (Blackstone)

    effective

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having the power to produce a required effect or effects.
  • The pill is an effective method of birth control.
  • Producing a decided or decisive effect.
  • The president delivered an effective speech!
  • * Jeremy Taylor
  • Whosoever is an effective , real cause of doing his neighbour wrong, is criminal.
  • Efficient, serviceable, or operative, available for useful work.
  • How long does it take to make a bunch of civilians an effective military force?
    My effective income after taxes and child support is $500 a month.
    The effective radiated power is determined by multiplying the transmitter power output with the antenna gain.
    The effective voltage of an alternating current is 0.7 times its peak voltage.
  • Actually in effect.
  • The curfew is effective at midnight.
  • Having no negative coefficients.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (military) A soldier fit for duty.
  • *1876 , , Recollections of the Elkhorn Campaign :
  • *:The Army of the West reached Corinth sometime after the battle of Shiloh. We were 15,000 effectives , and brought Beauregard's effective force up to 45,000 men.
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