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Manage vs Overcome - What's the difference?

manage | overcome |

In transitive terms the difference between manage and overcome

is that manage is to handle with skill, wield (a tool, weapon etc.) while overcome is to surmount (a physical or abstract obstacle); to prevail over, to get the better of.

In intransitive terms the difference between manage and overcome

is that manage is to achieve without fuss, or without outside help while overcome is to win or prevail in some sort of battle, contest, etc.

As a noun manage

is the act of managing or controlling something.

manage

English

Verb

(manag)
  • To direct or be in charge of.
  • To handle or control (a situation, job).
  • To handle with skill, wield (a tool, weapon etc.).
  • * (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • It was so much his interest to manage his Protestant subjects.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , II.ii:
  • The most vnruly, and the boldest boy, / That euer warlike weapons menaged [...].
  • To succeed at an attempt
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-11-30, volume=409, issue=8864, magazine=(The Economist), author=Paul Davis
  • , title= Letters: Say it as simply as possible , passage=Congratulations on managing to use the phrase “preponderant criterion” in a chart (“ On your marks”, November 9th). Was this the work of a kakorrhaphiophobic journalist set a challenge by his colleagues, or simply an example of glossolalia?}}
  • To achieve without fuss, or without outside help.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}
  • To train (a horse) in the manege; to exercise in graceful or artful action.
  • (obsolete) To treat with care; to husband.
  • (Dryden)
  • (obsolete) To bring about; to contrive.
  • (Shakespeare)

    Synonyms

    * (l)

    Derived terms

    * manageable * managed care * managed code * managed house * management * manager * managerial * unmanageable

    Noun

    (-)
  • The act of managing or controlling something.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.xii:
  • the winged God himselfe / Came riding on a Lion rauenous, / Taught to obay the menage of that Elfe [...].
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold.
  • * Shakespeare
  • the unlucky manage of this fatal brawl
  • (horseriding) .
  • See also

    * man * (projectlink)

    overcome

    English

    Verb

  • To surmount (a physical or abstract obstacle); to prevail over, to get the better of.
  • :to overcome enemies in battle
  • *Spenser
  • *:This wretched woman overcome / Of anguish, rather than of crime, hath been.
  • *1898 , , (Moonfleet), Ch.4:
  • *:By and by fumes of brandy began to fill the air, and climb to where I lay, overcoming the mouldy smell of decayed wood and the dampness of the green walls.
  • (obsolete) To win (a battle).
  • *:
  • *:Ther with all cam kyng Arthur but with a fewe peple and slewe on the lyfte hand and on the ryght hand that wel nyhe ther escaped no man / but alle were slayne to the nombre of xxx M / And whan the bataille was all ended the kynge kneled doune and thanked god mekely / and thenne he sente for the quene and soone she was come / and she maade grete Ioye of the ouercomynge of that bataille
  • To win or prevail in some sort of battle, contest, etc.
  • :
  • *
  • , chapter=2, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.}}
  • (usually in passive) To overwhelm with emotion.
  • :
  • To come or pass over; to spread over.
  • *Shakespeare
  • *:And overcome us like a summer's cloud.
  • To overflow; to surcharge.
  • :
  • References

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