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Authority vs Discipline - What's the difference?

authority | discipline |

As nouns the difference between authority and discipline

is that authority is the power to enforce rules or give orders while discipline is a controlled behaviour; self-control.

As a verb discipline is

to train someone by instruction and practice.

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

    discipline

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A controlled behaviour; self-control.
  • * Rogers
  • The most perfect, who have their passions in the best discipline , are yet obliged to be constantly on their guard.
  • An enforced compliance or control.
  • * '>citation
  • A systematic method of obtaining obedience.
  • * C. J. Smith
  • Discipline aims at the removal of bad habits and the substitution of good ones, especially those of order, regularity, and obedience.
  • A state of order based on submission to authority.
  • * Dryden
  • Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature's part, / Obey the rules and discipline of art.
  • A punishment to train or maintain control.
  • * Addison
  • giving her the discipline of the strap
  • A set of rules regulating behaviour.
  • A flagellation as a means of obtaining sexual gratification.
  • A specific branch of knowledge or learning.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline : too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}
    (Bishop Wilkins)
  • A category in which a certain art, sport or other activity belongs.
  • Synonyms

    * (branch or category) field, sphere * (punishment) penalty, sanction

    Antonyms

    * spontaneity

    Derived terms

    * academic discipline

    Verb

    (disciplin)
  • To train someone by instruction and practice.
  • To teach someone to obey authority.
  • To punish someone in order to (re)gain control.
  • To impose order on someone.
  • Synonyms

    * drill