Authority vs Might - What's the difference?
authority | might | Synonyms |
(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
(uncountable) Power, strength, force or influence held by a person or group.
(uncountable) Physical strength.
(uncountable) The ability to do something.
Mighty; powerful; possible.
(lb) Used to indicate conditional or possible actions.
:
* Bishop Joseph Hall
*
*:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron;. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= (lb) (may) Used to indicate permission in past tense.
:
(lb) (may) Used to indicate possibility in past tense.
:
*, chapter=1
, title= *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=19
Authority is a synonym of might.
As nouns the difference between authority and might
is that authority is (label) the power to enforce rules or give orders while might is (uncountable) power, strength, force or influence held by a person or group.As an adjective might is
mighty; powerful; possible.As a verb might is
(lb) used to indicate conditional or possible actions.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 Latinmight
English
(wikipedia might)Etymology 1
From (etyl) might, myghte, (also maught, macht, maht), from (etyl) miht, mieht, meaht, .Noun
(-)- He pushed with all his might , but still it would not move.
Adjective
(er)Etymology 2
From (etyl) meahte, from magan, whence English may.Verb
(head)- The characterism of an honest man: He looks not to what he might do, but what he should.
Fantasy of navigation, passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next;
Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
citation, passage=Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.}}
