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Perforce vs Derelict - What's the difference?

perforce | derelict |

As an adverb perforce

is (archaic) by force.

As a verb perforce

is (obsolete) to force; to compel.

As an adjective derelict is

abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.

As a noun derelict is

property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.

perforce

English

Adverb

(-)
  • (archaic) By force.
  • * 1593 — , Act iii, scene 1 (First Folio)
    • If ?he denie, Lord Hastings goe with him,
    And from her iealous Armes pluck him perforce .
  • * 1610 , , act 5 scene 1
    • For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
    Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
    Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require
    My dukedom of thee, which, perforce , I know
    Thou must restore.
  • Necessarily.
  • * 1813 — , Pride and Prejudice , ch. 17
    • Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own were perforce delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as good a grace as she could..
  • * , Episode 16
    • So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of Amiens street railway terminus
  • * 2006 — Alejandro Portes, Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait , 3rd ed., page 239
    • Adult immigrants must perforce learn some English, and their children are likely to become English monolinguals.

    Quotations

    * (English Citations of "perforce")

    Verb

  • (obsolete) To force; to compel.

    • derelict

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.
    • There was a derelict ship on the island.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , title=When and where did NASA's derelict satellite go down? citation
  • Negligent in performing a duty.
  • Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful.
  • * Burke
    • They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy.
  • * John Buchanan
    • A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties.

    Synonyms

    * (abandoned) abandoned

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1907 , title=(The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses) , author=Robert W. Service , chapter=(The Cremation of Sam McGee) , passage=Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."}}
  • (dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast.
  • * 1911 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (Norton 2005, p.1364):
    • A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.
  • A homeless and/or jobless person; a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their personal affairs and hygiene.
  • * 1988 , Jonathan D. Spence, The Question of Hu :
    • As they hunt, the Archers and Duval find many derelicts and ne'er-do-wells in many parts of Paris.
  • * 2002 , in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence'', ''The Boy in the Bush , edited by Paul Eggert, page 22:
    • If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men — British to the bone —
  • * 2004 , Katherine V. W. Stone, From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation , page 280:
    • We see the distinction at work when victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks are treated more generously than derelicts and drug addicts.

    See also

    * flotsam * jetsam * lagan * salvage