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Describes vs Define - What's the difference?

describes | define |

As verbs the difference between describes and define

is that describes is third-person singular of describe while define is to determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.

As a noun define is

a kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.

describes

English

Verb

(head)
  • (describe)
  • ----

    describe

    English

    Verb

    (describ)
  • (label) To represent in words.
  • * November 2 2014 , Daniel Taylor, " Sergio Agüero strike wins derby for Manchester City against 10-man United," guardian.co.uk
  • Yet the truth is that City would probably have been coasting by that point if the referee, Michael Oliver, had not turned down three separate penalties, at least two of which could be accurately described as certainties.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
  • , passage=
  • (label) To represent by drawing; to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out.
  • * 1826 , (James Fenimore Cooper), (The Last of the Mohicans)
  • Uncas described an arc in the water with his own blade, and as the canoe passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and flourishing it on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans.
  • To give rise to a geometrical structure.
  • To reveal a new species by scientifically explaining its characteristics and particularly how it differs from other species.
  • (label) To distribute into parts, groups, or classes; to mark off; to class.
  • * Bible, (w) xviii. 9
  • Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.

    Synonyms

    * (to represent in words) portray, betell, depict, report * (to represent in writing) bewrite

    define

    English

    (Definition)

    Verb

    (defin)
  • To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
  • * Sir (Isaac Newton)
  • Ringsvery distinct and well defined .
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Lee S. Langston
  • , title= The Adaptable Gas Turbine , passage=Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo'', meaning ''vortex , and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.}}
  • (obsolete) To settle, decide (an argument etc.).
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.3:
  • These warlike Champions, all in armour shine, / Assembled were in field the chalenge to define .
  • To express the essential nature of something.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
  • , volume=101, issue=3, page=178, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Crinkly Curves , passage=Cantor defined a one-to-one correspondence between the points of the square and the points of the line segment. Every point in the square was associated with a single point in the segment; every point in the segment was matched with a unique point in the square.}}
  • To state the meaning of a word, phrase, sign, or symbol.
  • To describe, explain, or make definite and clear.
  • To demark sharply the outlines or limits of an area or concept.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April, author=(Jan Sapp)
  • , volume=100, issue=2, page=164, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Race Finished , passage=Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?}}
  • (mathematics) To establish the referent of a term or notation.
  • Derived terms

    * definable * definer

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing, programming) A kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.
  • * 1996 , James Gosling, Henry McGilton, The Java Language Environment
  • From the computer programming perspective, Java looks like C and C++ while discarding the overwhelming complexities of those languages, such as typedefs, defines , preprocessor, unions, pointers, and multiple inheritance.
  • * 1999 , Ian Joyner, Objects unencapsulated: Java, Eiffel, and C++ (page 309)
  • Anyone who has attempted to do OO programming in a conventional language using defines will find out that it is impossible to realize the benefits easily, if at all, without compiler support.

    Anagrams

    * ----