Authority vs Bossy - What's the difference?
authority | bossy |
(label) The power to enforce rules or give orders.
* 1883 , (Howard Pyle), (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood)
(label) Persons in command; specifically, government.
*{{quote-book, year=1927, author=
, chapter=4, title= * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (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
Tending to give orders to others, especially when unwarranted; domineering.
(US, informal, dated) A cow or calf.
* about 1900 , O. Henry,
As nouns the difference between authority and bossy
is that authority is the power to enforce rules or give orders while bossy is a cow or calf.As an adjective bossy is
tending to give orders to others, especially when unwarranted; domineering.authority
English
Alternative forms
* authourity (obsolete)Noun
- 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.
F. E. Penny
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.}}
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.}}
- To punish me for my contempt of authority', Fate has made me an ' authority myself.
Derived terms
* moral authorityStatistics
* English terms derived from Latinbossy
English
Etymology 1
Adjective
(er)Synonyms
* dictatorial, authoritarian, commanding, tyrannical, demanding, inflexible * see alsoEtymology 2
Diminutive of dialectal English boss, as used in the term ).Noun
(bossies)- A week before, while riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick and weakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had reached and slung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped it at the ranch for the boys to attend to.