Comply vs Apply - What's the difference?
comply | apply |
To yield assent; to accord; agree, or acquiesce; to adapt one's self; to consent or conform.
* (John Milton) (1608-1674)
* (John Tillotson) (1630-1694)
* 1664? , , (Hudibras)
*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)
, chapter=6, title= *
(label) To be ceremoniously courteous; to make one's compliments.
* 1599 , , II. ii. 371:
(label) To fulfill; to accomplish.
(label) To enfold; to embrace.
* (1591-1674)
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
As verbs the difference between comply and apply
is that comply is to yield assent; to accord; agree, or acquiesce; to adapt one's self; to consent or conform while apply is 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.As an adjective apply is
an alternative spelling of lang=en.comply
English
Verb
(en-verb)- Yet this be sure, in nothing to comply , / Scandalous or forbidden in our law.
- They did servilely comply with the people in worshiping God by sensible images.
- He that complies against his will / Is of his own opinion still.
A Cuckoo in the Nest, passage=But Sophia's mother was not the woman to brook defiance. After a few moments' vain remonstrance her husband complied .}}
- Let me comply with you in this / garb, lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must / show fairly outwards, should more appear like entertainment / than yours.
- (Chapman)
- Seemed to comply , / Cloudlike, the daintie deitie.
Usage notes
* Usually followed by "with".Antonyms
* violateAnagrams
*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.
