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Pose vs Posture - What's the difference?

pose | posture |

In transitive terms the difference between pose and posture

is that pose is to constitute (a danger, a threat, a risk, etc.) while posture is to place in a particular position or attitude; to pose.

In intransitive terms the difference between pose and posture

is that pose is assume or maintain a pose; strike an attitude while posture is to pretend to have an opinion or a conviction.

As an adjective posé

is standing still, with all the feet on the ground.

pose

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) pose, from (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) common cold, head cold; catarrh
  • * 1586 , W. Harrison
  • Now have we many chimnies, and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses .

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) posen, from (etyl) ; influenced by (etyl) ponere.

    Verb

    (pos)
  • To place in an attitude or fixed position, for the sake of effect.
  • To pose a model for a picture.
  • Ask; set (a test, quiz, riddle, etc.).
  • To constitute (a danger, a threat, a risk, etc.).
  • * 2010 , Noam Chomsky, The Iranian threat , Z Magazine, vol 23, number 7:
  • Rather, they are concerned with the threat Iran poses to the region and the world.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=September 2 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Bulgaria 0-3 England , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Rooney's United team-mate Chris Smalling was given his debut at right-back and was able to adjust to the international stage in relatively relaxed fashion as Bulgaria barely posed a threat of any consequence.}}
  • * 2014 , Ian Black, " Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis", The Guardian , 27 November 2014:
  • The threat the most radical of them pose is evidently far greater at home than abroad: in one characteristically slick and chilling Isis video – entitled “a message to the Jordanian tyrant” – a smiling, long-haired young man in black pats the explosive belt round his waist as he burns his passport and his fellow fighters praise the memory of Zarqawi, who was killed in Iraq in 2006.
  • Assume or maintain a pose; strike an attitude.
  • * Thackeray
  • He posed before her as a hero.
  • (obsolete) To interrogate; to question.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • She posed him and sifted him.
  • (obsolete) To question with a view to puzzling; to embarrass by questioning or scrutiny; to bring to a stand.
  • * Barrow
  • A question wherewith a learned Pharisee thought to pose and puzzle him.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Position, posture, arrangement (especially of the human body).
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway,
  • Affectation.
  • Derived terms
    * posable

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) posen, a combination of aphetic forms of (etyl) aposen and opposen. More at appose, oppose.

    Alternative forms

    * (l)

    Verb

    (pos)
  • (obsolete) To ask (someone) questions; to interrogate.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , Luke II:
  • And hit fortuned that after .iii. dayes, they founde hym in the temple sittinge in the middes of the doctours, both hearynge them, and posinge them.
  • to puzzle, non-plus, or embarrass with difficult questions.
  • To perplex or confuse (someone).
  • Derived terms
    * poser

    posture

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The way a person holds and positions their body.
  • * 1609, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
  • As if that whatsoever god who leads him / Were slily crept into his human powers, / And gave him graceful posture .
  • * 1689 (or earlier), Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
  • ...walking in a most dejected posture , without a band, unbraced, his arms a-cross his open breast, and his eyes bent to the floor;
  • * 1895, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
  • Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture . It is most indecorous.
  • A situation or condition.
  • * 1905, David Graham Phillips, The Deluge
  • Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs...
  • * 1910, H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly
  • Uncle Jim stopped amazed. His brain did not instantly rise to the new posture of things.
  • One's attitude or the social or political position one takes towards an issue or another person.
  • * 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
  • ...that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.
  • * 1912, G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men
  • But it is not true, no sane person can call it true, that man as a whole in his general attitude towards the world, in his posture towards death or green fields, towards the weather or the baby, will be wise to cultivate dissatisfaction.
  • (rare) The position of someone or something relative to another; position; situation.
  • * 1661, Thomas Salusbury (translator), Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World
  • The Moon beheld in any posture , in respect of the Sun and us, sheweth us its superficies ... always equally clear.

    Verb

    (postur)
  • to put one's body into a posture or series of postures, especially hoping that one will be noticed and admired
  • If you're finished posturing in front of the mirror, can I use the bathroom now?
  • to pretend to have an opinion or a conviction
  • The politicians couldn't really care less about the issue: they're just posturing for the media.
  • To place in a particular position or attitude; to pose.
  • to posture''' oneself; to '''posture a model
    (Howell)

    Anagrams

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