Practice vs Actually - What's the difference?
practice | actually |
Repetition of an activity to improve skill.
(uncountable) The ongoing pursuit of a craft or profession, particularly in medicine or the fine arts.
(countable) A place where a professional service is provided, such as a general practice.
The observance of religious duties that a church requires of its members.
A customary action, habit, or behavior; a manner or routine.
Actual operation or experiment, in contrast to theory.
(legal) The form, manner, and order of conducting and carrying on suits and prosecutions through their various stages, according to the principles of law and the rules laid down by the courts.
Skilful or artful management; dexterity in contrivance or the use of means; stratagem; artifice.
* Sir Philip Sidney
(math) A easy and concise method of applying the rules of arithmetic to questions which occur in trade and business.
(US) To repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity.
(US) To repeat an activity in this way.
(US) To perform or observe in a habitual fashion.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
, author=John T. Jost
, title=Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?
, volume=100, issue=2, page=162
, magazine=(American Scientist)
(US) To pursue (a career, especially law, fine art or medicine).
(intransitive, archaic, US) To conspire.
(modal) In act or in fact; really; in truth; positively.
(obsolete) actively
remarked upon the irony that this qualifier of veracity often introduces an utter lie;, page 3 and,
* noted that in many cases, (term) functions as little more than a vacuous emphatic utterance.ibidem , page 4
* In practice, actually and its synonyms are often used to insinuate that the following is either unusual or contrary to a norm or preceding assumption, or to merely preface an overconfident opinion contrasting a previous statement or norm (as per 'vacuous emphasis' note above).
: This is actually a really beautiful song. (contrasting opinion)
: Actually , I'm not from France - I'm from Switzerland. (contrary from assumption)
: At the check-out, the cashier actually greeted me for once. (contrary from norm)
As a noun practice
is repetition of an activity to improve skill.As a verb practice
is (us) to repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity.As an adverb actually is
(modal) in act or in fact; really; in truth; positively.practice
English
(wikipedia practice)Alternative forms
* (British) practise (used only for the verb )Noun
(practices)- He will need lots of practice with the lines before he performs them.
- She ran a thriving medical practice .
- It is the usual practice of employees there to wear neckties only when meeting with customers.
- It is good practice to check each door and window before leaving.
- That may work in theory, but will it work in practice ?
- This firm of solicitors is involved in family law practice .
- He sought to have that by practice which he could not by prayer.
- (Francis Bacon)
Usage notes
British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand English distinguish between practice'' (a noun) and ''practise (a verb), analogously with advice/advise. In American English, practice is commonly used for both forms, and this is also common in Canada.Synonyms
* (improvement of skill) rehearsal, drill, exercise, training, workout * (customary action) custom, habit, routine, wont, wone * fashion, pattern, trick, way, dry run, trialDerived terms
* general practice * overpractice * practice makes perfect * practice what one preaches * put into practice * sharp practiceVerb
(practic)- You should practice playing piano every day.
- If you want to speak French well, you need to practice .
citation, passage=He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.}}
- They gather to practice religion every Saturday.
- She practiced law for forty years before retiring.
Usage notes
* In sense "to repeat an activity as a way improving one's skill" this is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing) . SeeDerived terms
* practiced * practicingactually
English
Adverb
(-)- Actually , I had nothing to do with that incident.
- Neither actually nor passively. — Fuller.