Decide vs Prefer - What's the difference?
decide | prefer |
To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle.
* Shakespeare
To make a judgment, especially after deliberation.
* Bible, 1 Kings xx. 40
To cause someone to come to a decision.
* 1920 , , "The Adventure of the Three Gables" (Norton edition, 2005, p. 1537),
(obsolete) To cut off; to separate.
* Fuller
*, II.3.2:
*:Tiberius preferred many to honours in his time, because they were famous whoremasters and sturdy drinkers.
(lb) To be in the habit of choosing something rather than something else; to favor; to like better.
:
*
*:"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;."
(lb) To present or submit (something) to an authority (now usually in "to prefer charges").
*1630 , , True Travels , in Kupperman 1988, p.36:
*:one Master David Hume, who making some use of his purse, gave him Letters to his friends in Scotland to preferre him to King James.
*1817 , (Walter Scott), , XVII:
*:Such were the arguments which my will boldly preferred to my conscience, as coin which ought to be current, and which conscience, like a grumbling shopkeeper, was contented to accept.
prefer'' + noun + ''to'' (or ''over'') + noun. Example: ''I prefer coffee to tea .
* prefer'' + gerund + ''to'' (or ''over'') + gerund. Example: ''I prefer skiing to swimming .
* prefer'' + full infinitive + ''rather than'' + bare infinitive. Example: ''I prefer to eat fish rather than (eat) meat .
As verbs the difference between decide and prefer
is that decide is while prefer is .decide
English
Verb
(decid)- The election will be decided on foreign policies.
- We must decide our next move.
- Her last-minute goal decided the game.
- The quarrel toucheth none but us alone; / Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.
- You must decide between good and evil.
- I have decided that it is healthier to walk to work.
- So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it.
- It decides me to look into the matter, for if it is worth anyone's while to take so much trouble, there must be something in it.
- Our seat denies us traffic here; / The sea, too near, decides us from the rest.