Discretion vs Authority - What's the difference?
discretion | authority |
The quality of being discreet or circumspect.
The ability to make wise choices or decisions.
The freedom to make one's own judgements.
(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
As nouns the difference between discretion and authority
is that discretion is discretion while authority is (label) the power to enforce rules or give orders.discretion
English
Noun
(en-noun)- Bob showed great discretion despite his knowledge of the affair.
- I leave that to your discretion .
Antonyms
*Derived terms
* discretionary *Anagrams
* ----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.