Assay vs Essay - What's the difference?
assay | essay |
Trial, attempt, essay.
* Milton
Examination and determination; test.
* Shakespeare
The qualitative or quantitative chemical analysis of something.
Trial by danger or by affliction; adventure; risk; hardship; state of being tried.
* Spenser
Tested purity or value.
* Spenser
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.
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 ,
*: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:
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.
A written composition of moderate length exploring a particular issue or subject.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-01
, author=Katie L. Burke
, title=Ecological Dependency
, volume=101, issue=1, page=64
, magazine=
(obsolete) A test, experiment; an assay.
An attempt.
* 1988 , James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom , Oxford 2003, p. 455:
(dated) To try.
* 1900 , , The House Behind the Cedars , Chapter II,
To move forth, as into battle.
As nouns the difference between assay and essay
is that assay is trial, attempt, essay while essay is a written composition of moderate length exploring a particular issue or subject.As verbs the difference between assay and essay
is that assay is to attempt (something) while essay is to try.assay
English
Noun
(wikipedia assay) (en noun)- I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay than it now seems at distance.
- This cannot be, by no assay of reason.
- Through many hard assays which did betide.
- With gold and pearl of rich assay .
- (Ure)
Verb
IV , The Sage to the Young Man, ll.5-8:
- 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.
Derived terms
* assay office * assay mark * bioassay * immunoassay * radioimmunoassayAnagrams
*essay
English
(wikipedia essay)Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature , David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.”}}
- This was Lee's first essay in the kind of offensive-defensive strategy that was to become his hallmark.
Derived terms
* photo essayVerb
(en verb)- He retraced his steps to the front gate, which he essayed to open.