Assign vs Apply - What's the difference?
assign | apply | Related terms |
(lb) To designate or set apart something for some purpose.
:
(lb) To appoint or select someone for some office.
:
(lb) To allot or give something as a task.
*(Robert Southey) (1774-1843)
*:The man who could feel thus was worthy of a better station than that in which his lot had been assigned .
* (1796-1859)
*:He assigned to his men their several posts.
*
*:Captain Edward Carlisle; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.
(lb) To attribute or sort something into categories.
To transfer property, a legal right, etc., from one person to another.
To give (a value) to a variable.
:
An assignee.
(obsolete) A thing relating or belonging to something else; an appurtenance.
* Shakespeare
To lay or place; to put or adjust (one thing to another);—with to; as, to apply the hand to the breast; to apply medicaments to a diseased part of the body.
* {{quote-book
, author=
, title=Translation of Virgil's Aeneid
, passage=He said, and to the sword his throat applied .
, year=1697}}
To put to use; to use or employ for a particular purpose, or in a particular case; to appropriate; to devote; as, to apply money to the payment of a debt.
To make use of, declare, or pronounce, as suitable, fitting, or relative; as, to apply the testimony to the case; to apply an epithet to a person.
* (rfdate) Milton,
To fix closely; to engage and employ diligently, or with attention; to attach; to incline.
* 1611 , '', ''Proverbs 23:12,
To betake; to address; to refer; generally used reflexively.
* Alexander Pope
* (rfdate) Johnson
To submit oneself as a candidate (with the adposition "to" designating the recipient of the submission, and the adposition "for" designating the position).
To pertain or be relevant to a specified individual or group.
(obsolete) To busy; to keep at work; to ply.
* Sir Philip Sidney
(obsolete) To visit.
* Chapman
In transitive terms the difference between assign and apply
is that assign is to attribute or sort something into categories while apply is to betake; to address; to refer; generally used reflexively.In obsolete terms the difference between assign and apply
is that assign is a thing relating or belonging to something else; an appurtenance while apply is to visit.As a noun assign
is an assignee.As an adjective apply is
an alternative spelling of lang=en.assign
English
Verb
(en verb)Derived terms
* assignment * assignable * assignationNoun
(en noun)- Six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns , as girdles, hangers, and so.
apply
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) applier, ((etyl) appliquer), from (etyl) . See applicant, ply.Verb
(en-verb)- Yet God at last To Satan, first in sin, his doom applied .
- Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
- sacred vows applied to grisly Pluto
- I applied myself to him for help.
- I recently applied to the tavern for a job as a bartender.
- Most of the colleges she applied to were ones she thought she had a good chance of getting into.
- Many of them don't know it, but almost a third of the inmates are eligible to apply for parole or work-release programs.
- That rule only applies to foreigners.
- She was skillful in applying his humours.
- His armour was so clear, / And he applied each place so fast, that like a lightning thrown / Out of the shield of Jupiter, in every eye he shone.