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Authority vs Consent - What's the difference?

authority | consent |

As nouns the difference between authority and consent

is that authority is (label) the power to enforce rules or give orders while consent is voluntary agreement or permission.

As a verb consent is

to express willingness, to give permission.

authority

English

Alternative forms

* authourity (obsolete)

Noun

  • (label) The power to enforce rules or give orders.
  • * 1883 , (Howard Pyle), (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood)
  • 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.
  • (label) Persons in command; specifically, government.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= 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.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= 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.}}
  • (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
  • To punish me for my contempt of authority', Fate has made me an ' authority myself.

    Derived terms

    * moral authority

    consent

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To express willingness, to give permission.
  • ''I've consented to have the procedure performed.
  • * (rfdate) Shakespeare
  • My poverty, but not my will, consents .
  • (medicine) To cause to sign a consent form.
  • *
  • (obsolete) To grant; to allow; to assent to.
  • * (rfdate) Milton
  • Interpreters will not consent it to be a true story.
  • To agree in opinion or sentiment; to be of the same mind; to accord; to concur.
  • * (rfdate) Bible, Acts viii. 1
  • And Saul was consenting unto his death.
  • * (rfdate) Fuller
  • Flourishing many years before Wyclif, and much consenting with him in jugdment.

    Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . See

    Synonyms

    * (intransitive) acquiesce, agree, approve, assent, concur,

    Antonyms

    * (intransitive) disagree, , oppose

    Derived terms

    * consenting

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Voluntary agreement or permission.
  • *, II.6:
  • All men know by experience, there be some parts of our bodies which often without any consent of ours doe stirre, stand, and lye down againe.

    Synonyms

    * (voluntary agreement) agreement, approval, assent, permission, willingness,

    Antonyms

    * (voluntary agreement) dissent, disagreement, opposition, refusal

    Derived terms

    * consenter * consentaneous * age of consent