Contain vs Engage - What's the difference?
contain | engage |
(lb) To hold inside.
*
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To include as a part.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-21, volume=411, issue=8884, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*
To have as an element.
To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.
* Bible, vii. 9.
To interact socially.
#To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied.
#*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
#*:Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage .
#To draw into conversation.
#*(Nathaniel Hawthorne) (1804-1864)
#*:the difficult task of engaging him in conversation
#To attract, to please; (archaic) to fascinate or win over (someone).
#*(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
#*:Good nature engages everybody to him.
(lb) To interact antagonistically.
#(lb) To enter into conflict with (an enemy).
#*(Fitz Hugh Ludlow) (1836-1870)
#*:a favourable opportunity of engaging the enemy
#(lb) To enter into battle.
(lb) To interact contractually.
#(lb) To arrange to employ or use (a worker, a space, etc.).
#*{{quote-book, year=1905, author=
, title=
, chapter=2 #(lb) To guarantee or promise (to do something).
#(lb) To bind through legal or moral obligation (to do something, especially to marry) (usually in passive).
#:
# To pledge, pawn (one's property); to put (something) at risk or on the line; to mortgage (houses, land).
#* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , II.vii:
(lb) To interact mechanically.
#To mesh or interlock (of machinery, especially a clutch).
#:
# To come into gear with.
(label) To enter into (an activity), to participate (construed with in).
*
*:“[…] We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic?”
As verbs the difference between contain and engage
is that contain is (lb) to hold inside while engage is .contain
English
Verb
(en verb)- At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
Welcome to the plastisphere, passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria,
Subtle effects, passage=Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.}}
- The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions.
- Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.
- Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
- But if they can not contain , let them marry.
Synonyms
* (hold inside) enclose, inhold * (include as part) comprise, embody, incorporate, inhold * (limit by restraint) control, curb, repress, restrain, restrict, stifleAntonyms
* (include as part) exclude, omit * (limit by restraint) release, ventExternal links
* * *engage
English
(wikipedia engage)Alternative forms
* ingage (obsolete)Verb
(engag)citation, passage=For this scene, a large number of supers are engaged , and in order to further swell the crowd, practically all the available stage hands have to ‘walk on’ dressed in various coloured dominoes, and all wearing masks.}}
- Thou that doest liue in later times, must wage / Thy workes for wealth, and life for gold engage .
- The teeth of one cogwheel engage those of another.