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Reform vs Policy - What's the difference?

reform | policy |

As nouns the difference between reform and policy

is that reform is amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved; reformation; as, reform of elections; reform of government while policy is the art of governance; political science.

As verbs the difference between reform and policy

is that reform is to put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct while policy is to regulate by laws; to reduce to order.

reform

English

(wikipedia reform) (Webster 1913)

Noun

(en noun)
  • Amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved; reformation; as, reform of elections; reform of government.

    • Synonyms

    * reformation * amendment * rectification * correction

    Derived terms

    * monetary reform

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct.
    • to reform''' a profligate man; to '''reform corrupt manners or morals
  • * Jonathan Swift
    • The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it.
  • To return to a good state; to amend or correct one's own character or habits; as, a person of settled habits of vice will seldom reform.
  • (intransitive) To form again or in a new configuration.
    • This product contains reformed meat.
    The regiment reformed after surviving the first attack.
    The pop group reformed for one final tour.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=August 21 , author=Jason Heller , title=The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Since first tossing its cartoonish, good-time cock-rock to the masses in the early ’00s, The Darkness has always fallen back on this defense: The band is a joke, but hey, it’s a good joke. With Hot Cakes —the group’s third album, and first since reforming last year—the laughter has died. In its place is the sad wheeze of the last surviving party balloon slowly, listlessly deflating.}}

    Synonyms

    * amend * correct * rectify * mend * repair * better * improve * restore * reclaim

    Anagrams

    * former ----

    policy

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) policie, from . Compare police.

    Noun

    (policies)
  • (obsolete) The art of governance; political science.
  • * a. 1616 , (William Shakespeare), Henry V , I.1:
    • List his discourse of Warre; and you shall heare / A fearefull Battaile rendred you in Musique. / Turne him to any Cause of Pollicy , / The Gordian Knot of it he will vnloose, / Familiar as his Garter
  • (obsolete) A state; a polity.
  • (obsolete) A set political system; civil administration.
  • (obsolete) A trick; a stratagem.
  • * a. 1594 , (William Shakespeare), Titus Andronicus :
    • 'Tis pollicie , and stratageme must doe / That you affect, and so must you resolue, / That what you cannot as you would atcheiue, / You must perforce accomplish as you may.
  • A principle of behaviour, conduct etc. thought to be desirable or necessary, especially as formally expressed by a government or other authoritative body.
    • The Communist Party has a policy of returning power to the workers.
  • Wise or advantageous conduct; prudence, formerly also with connotations of craftiness.
  • * 1813 , Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice , Modern Library Edition (1995), page 140:
    • These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater policy concealed my struggles, and flattered you
  • * Fuller
    • The very policy of a hostess, finding his purse so far above his clothes, did detect him.
  • (now, rare) Specifically, political shrewdness or (formerly) cunning; statecraft.
  • * 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.25:
    • Whether he believed himself a god, or only took on the attributes of divinity from motives of policy , is a question for the psychologist, since the historical evidence is indecisive.
  • (Scotland, now, chiefly, in the plural) The grounds of a large country house.
  • * 1955 , (Robin Jenkins), The Cone-Gatherers , Canongate 2012, page 36:
    • Next morning was so splendid that as he walked through the policies towards the mansion house despair itself was lulled.
  • (obsolete) Motive; object; inducement.
  • * Sir Philip Sidney
    • What policy have you to bestow a benefit where it is counted an injury?
    Derived terms
    * policied * policymaker * policy shift * endowment policy * fiscal policy * honesty is the best policy * monetary policy * policy mix

    Verb

  • To regulate by laws; to reduce to order.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • Policying of cities.''

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) police, from (etyl) polizza, from

    Noun

    (policies)
  • A contract of insurance
  • * Your insurance policy covers fire and theft only.
  • (obsolete) An illegal daily lottery in late nineteenth and early twentieth century USA on numbers drawn from a lottery wheel (no plural )
  • A number pool lottery
    • Synonyms
    * (number pool) policy racket
    Derived terms
    * policyholder

    External links

    * (wikipedia)