Prescribe vs Subscribe - What's the difference?
prescribe | subscribe |
To order (a drug or medical device) for use by a particular patient.
To specify as a required procedure or ritual; to lay down authoritatively as a guide, direction, or rule of action.
* Shakespeare
* Dryden
(ergative) To sign up to have copies of a publication, such as a newspaper or a magazine, delivered for a period of time.
To pay for the provision of a service, such as Internet access or a cell phone plan.
To believe or agree with a theory or an idea.
To pay money to be a member of an organization.
To contribute or promise to contribute money to a common fund.
To promise to give, by writing one's name with the amount.
(business, and, finance) To agree to buy shares in a company.
To sign; to mark with one's signature as a token of consent or attestation.
* Milman
(archaic) To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name).
* Sir Thomas More
(obsolete) To sign away; to yield; to surrender.
(obsolete) To yield; to admit to being inferior or in the wrong.
(obsolete) To declare over one's signature; to publish.
* Shakespeare
As verbs the difference between subscribe and prescribe
is that subscribe is to sign up to have copies of a publication, such as a newspaper or a magazine, delivered for a period of time while prescribe is to order (a drug or medical device) for use by a particular patient.prescribe
English
Alternative forms
* (archaic)Usage notes
* The pronunciation with the stressed first syllable is normally used only when added distinction from (proscribe) is required.Verb
(prescrib)- The doctor prescribed aspirin.
- Prescribe not us our duties.
- Let streams prescribe their fountains where to run.
See also
* proscribe English transitive verbs ----subscribe
English
Verb
(subscrib)- Would you like to subscribe''' or '''subscribe a friend to our new magazine, Lexicography Illustrated?
- I don’t subscribe to that theory.
- 1913:' Theodore Roosevelt, ''Autobiography'' — under no circumstances could I ever again be nominated for any public office, as no corporation would '''subscribe''' to a campaign fund if I was on the ticket, and that they would ' subscribe most heavily to beat me;
- Each man subscribed ten dollars.
- 1776:' Adam Smith, ''The Wealth of Nations'' — The capital which had been ' subscribed to this bank, at two different subscriptions, amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, of which eighty per cent only was paid up.
- Parties subscribe''' a covenant or contract; a man '''subscribes a bond.
- Officers subscribe''' their official acts, and secretaries and clerks '''subscribe copies or records.
- All the bishops subscribed the sentence.
- [They] subscribed their names under them.
- (Shakespeare)
- I will subscribe him a coward.