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Assay vs Application - What's the difference?

assay | application |

As nouns the difference between assay and application

is that assay is trial, attempt, essay while application is the act of applying or laying on, in a literal sense; as, the application of emollients to a diseased limb.

As a verb assay

is to attempt (something).

assay

English

Noun

(wikipedia assay) (en noun)
  • Trial, attempt, essay.
  • * Milton
    • I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay than it now seems at distance.
  • Examination and determination; test.
  • * Shakespeare
    • This cannot be, by no assay of reason.
  • The qualitative or quantitative chemical analysis of something.
  • Trial by danger or by affliction; adventure; risk; hardship; state of being tried.
  • * Spenser
    • Through many hard assays which did betide.
  • Tested purity or value.
  • * Spenser
    • With gold and pearl of rich assay .
  • The act or process of ascertaining the proportion of a particular metal in an ore or alloy; especially, the determination of the proportion of gold or silver in bullion or coin.
  • The alloy or metal to be assayed.
    • (Ure)

    Verb

  • To attempt (something).
  • *Shakespeare
  • *:To-night let us assay our plot.
  • *Milton
  • *:Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed .
  • *1936 , (Alfred Edward Housman), More Poems , IV , The Sage to the Young Man, ll.5-8:
  • *:Who seest the stark array / And hast not stayed to count / But singly wilt assay / The many-cannoned mount.
  • *2011 , ‘All-pro, anti-American’, The Economist , 28 May:
  • *:Speaking before a small crowd beneath antique airplanes suspended in the atrium of the State of Iowa Historical Museum, an effortfully cheerful Mr Romney assayed an early version of a stump speech I imagine will become a staple of his campaign for the Republican nomination, once it "officially" begins some time next week in New Hampshire.
  • (archaic) To try, attempt ((to) do something).
  • *1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts IX:
    • When Saul cam to Jerusalem he assayde to cople hymsilfe with the apostles, and they wer all afrayde of hym and beleved not that he was a disciple.
  • To analyze or estimate the composition or value of (a metal, ore etc.).
  • (obsolete) To test the abilities of (someone) in combat; to fight.
  • *:
  • *:I wold not by my wille that ony of vs were matched with hym / Nay said sir Gawayne not so / it were shame to vs were he not assayed were he neuer soo good a knyghte
  • *1977 , (Geoffrey Chaucer), (The Canterbury Tales) , Penguin Classics, p.351:
  • *:The marquis, in obsession for his wife, / Longed to expose her constancy to test. / He could not throw the thought away or rest, / Having a marvellous passion to assay' her; / Needless, God knows, to frighten and dismay her, / He had ' assayed her faith enough before / And ever found her good; what was the need / Of heaping trial on her, more and more?
  • To affect.
  • *Spenser
  • *:when the heart is ill assayed
  • To try tasting, as food or drink.

    • Derived terms

    * assay office * assay mark * bioassay * immunoassay * radioimmunoassay

    Anagrams

    *

    application

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of applying or laying on, in a literal sense; as, the application of emollients to a diseased limb.
  • The thing applied.
  • * Johnson
    • He invented a new application by which blood might be stanched.
  • * 1857 , John Eadie, ?John Francis Waller, ?William John Macquorn Rankine, The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography
    • His body was stripped, laid out upon a table, and covered with a hearsecloth, when some of his attendants perceived symptoms of returning animation, and by the use of warm applications , internal and external, gradually restored him to life.
  • The act of applying as a means; the employment of means to accomplish an end; specific use.
  • * (John Locke)
    • If a right course be taken with children, there will not be much need of the application of the common rewards and punishments.
  • The act of directing or referring something to a particular case, to discover or illustrate agreement or disagreement, fitness, or correspondence.
    • I make the remark, and leave you to make the '''application .
    The application of a theory to a set of data can be challenging.
  • (computing) A computer program or the set of software that the end user perceives as a single entity as a tool for a well-defined purpose. (Also called: application program; application software.)
    • This iPhone application can connect to most social networks.
  • A verbal or written request for assistance or employment or admission to a school.
    • December 31 is the deadline for MBA applications .
  • (bureaucracy, legal) A petition, entreaty, or other request.
    • Their application for a deferral of the hearing was granted.

    Hyponyms

    * See also

    Synonyms

    * (computer software) software, program

    References

    * WordNet 3.0 [http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=application]. ----