Verb

(en verb)

To give permission, power, or the legal right to do something.

* {{quote-book, year=1985, author=William H. Tench, title=Safety is no accident

, passage=Regulations have been made under the Civil Aviation Acts of 1949, 1980 and 1982 which empower Inspectors of Accidents to do these things.}}

To give someone more confidence and/or strength to do something, often by enabling them to increase their control over their own life or situation.

It's not enough to give women and minorities equal rights on paper; they need to be empowered to be able to make use of these rights.

John found that starting up his own business empowered him greatly in social situations.

* {{quote-book, year=1992, author=Nick Logan, title=The Face, page=11-130

, passage=Musically, what originally attracted me to dance was its shamanist aspects, using natural magic to change people's neurological states and to psychologically empower them.}}

Verb

To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.

To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.

* Macaulay

He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession.

To certify or license someone for something.

To modify, limit, restrict or moderate something; especially to add conditions or requirements for an assertion to be true.

*1598 , Shakespeare,

*:O! never say that I was false of heart,

*:Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify

To mitigate, alleviate (something); to make less disagreeable.

* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.vi:

he balmes and herbes thereto applyde, / And euermore with mighty spels them charmd, / That in short space he has them qualifyde , / And him restor'd to health, that would haue algates dyde.

To compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage.

To give individual quality to; to modulate; to vary; to regulate.

* Sir Thomas Browne

It hath no larynx to qualify the sound.

(juggling) To throw and catch each object at least twice.