What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Approve vs Assay - What's the difference?

approve | assay |

As verbs the difference between approve and assay

is that approve is to sanction officially; to ratify; to confirm or approve can be (english law) to make profit of; to convert to one's own profit;—said especially of waste or common land appropriated by the lord of the manor while assay is to attempt (something).

As a noun assay is

trial, attempt, essay.

approve

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) . Compare prove, approbate.

Verb

(approv)
  • To sanction officially; to ratify; to confirm.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.}}
  • To regard as good; to commend; to be pleased with; to think well of.
  • To make proof of; to demonstrate; to prove or show practically.
  • * (Ralph Waldo Emerson),
    • Opportunities to approve worth.
  • * (Thomas Babington Macaulay),
    • He had approved himself a great warrior.
  • * (George Gordon Byron),
    • 'T is an old lesson; Time approves it true.
  • * (Francis Parkman),
    • His accountapproves him a man of thought.
  • To consider or show to be worthy of approbation or acceptance.
  • * (Henry Rogers),
    • The first care and concern must be to approve himself to God.
  • * (Thomas Babington Macaulay),
    • They had not approved of the deposition of James.
  • * (William Black),
    • They approved of the political institutions.
    Note: This word, when it signifies to be pleased with, to think favorably (of''), is often followed by ''of .
    Derived terms
    () * approval * approvable * I approve this message * approvably * approbation

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) aprouer; . Compare with improve.

    Verb

    (approv)
  • (English Law) To make profit of; to convert to one's own profit;—said especially of waste or common land appropriated by the lord of the manor.

    • References

    *

    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

    *