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Arbiter vs Authority - What's the difference?

arbiter | authority | Synonyms |

Arbiter is a synonym of authority.


As nouns the difference between arbiter and authority

is that arbiter is a person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them; an arbitrator while authority is (label) the power to enforce rules or give orders.

As a verb arbiter

is to act as arbiter.

arbiter

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them; an arbitrator.
  • * 1931 , William Bennett Munro, The government of the United States, national, state, and local , page 495
  • In order to protect individual liberty there must be an arbiter between the governing powers and the governed.
  • (with of) A person or object having the power of judging and determining, or ordaining, without control; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited.
  • Television and film, not ''Vogue and similar magazines, are the arbiters of fashion.
  • (electronics) A component in circuitry that allocates scarce resources.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To act as arbiter.
  • * 2003 , Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not the French , page 116
  • Worse, since there was no institution to arbiter disagreements between Parliament and the government, whenever Parliament voted against the government on the smallest issues, coalitions fragmented, and governments had to be recomposed.

    Anagrams

    * ----

    authority

    English

    Alternative forms

    * authourity (obsolete)

    Noun

  • (label) The power to enforce rules or give orders.
  • * 1883 , (Howard Pyle), (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood)
  • But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.
  • (label) Persons in command; specifically, government.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities . A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Legal highs: A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
  • (label) A person accepted as a source of reliable information on a subject.
  • * 1930 September 18, Albert Einstein, as quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1988) by Banesh Hoffman
  • To punish me for my contempt of authority', Fate has made me an ' authority myself.

    Derived terms

    * moral authority