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Purchase vs Pay - What's the difference?

purchase | pay |

As nouns the difference between purchase and pay

is that purchase is the act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc. while pay is money given in return for work; salary or wages.

As verbs the difference between purchase and pay

is that purchase is to pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire while pay is to give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services.

As an adjective pay is

operable or accessible on deposit of coins.

purchase

English

Noun

  • (obsolete) The act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc.)
  • * Beaumont and Fletcher
  • I'll get meat to have thee, / Or lose my life in the purchase .
  • An individual item one has purchased.
  • The acquisition of title to, or property in, anything for a price; buying for money or its equivalent.
  • They offer a free hamburger with the purchase of a drink.
  • That which is obtained, got or acquired, in any manner, honestly or dishonestly; property; possession; acquisition.
  • That which is obtained for a price in money or its equivalent.
  • He was pleased with his latest purchase .
  • (uncountable) Any mechanical hold or advantage, applied to the raising or removing of heavy bodies, as by a lever, a tackle or capstan.
  • It is hard to get purchase on a nail without a pry bar or hammer.
  • The apparatus, tackle or device by which such mechanical advantage is gained and in nautical terminology the ratio of such a device, like a pulley, or block and tackle.
  • (rock climbing, uncountable) The amount of hold one has from an individual foothold or ledge.
  • (legal, dated) Acquisition of lands or tenements by means other than descent or inheritance, namely, by one's own act or agreement.
  • (Blackstone)

    Derived terms

    * purchase order * repurchase

    Verb

    (purchas)
  • To pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.
  • * Spenser
  • that loves the thing he cannot purchase
  • * Shakespeare
  • Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
  • * Shakespeare
  • His faults hereditary / Rather than purchased .
  • To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent.
  • to purchase''' land'', ''to '''purchase a house
  • To obtain by any outlay, as of labor, danger, or sacrifice, etc.
  • to purchase favor with flattery
  • * Shakespeare
  • One poor retiring minute / Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends.
  • To expiate by a fine or forfeit.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Not tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
  • To apply to (anything) a device for obtaining a mechanical advantage; to get a purchase' upon, or apply a ' purchase to.
  • to purchase a cannon
  • To put forth effort to obtain anything; to strive; to exert oneself.
  • * Ld. Berners
  • Duke John of Brabant purchased greatly that the Earl of Flanders should have his daughter in marriage.
  • To constitute the buying power for a purchase, have a trading value.
  • ''Many aristocratic refugees' portable treasures purchased their safe passage and comfortable exile during the revolution

    Synonyms

    * (buy) procure

    Derived terms

    * purchable * purchasing agent * purchasing power

    pay

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) ).

    Verb

  • To give money or other compensation to in exchange for goods or services.
  • * , chapter=17
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
  • , volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about
  • (ambitransitive) To discharge, as a debt or other obligation, by giving or doing what is due or required.
  • * (Bible), (Psalms) xxxvii. 21
  • The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= T time , passage=Yet in “Through a Latte, Darkly”, a new study of how Starbucks has largely avoided paying tax in Britain, Edward Kleinbard […] shows that current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate what he calls “stateless income”: […]. In Starbucks’s case, the firm has in effect turned the process of making an expensive cup of coffee into intellectual property.}}
  • To be profitable for.
  • To give (something else than money).
  • * (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • not paying me a welcome
  • *
  • They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.
  • To be profitable or worth the effort.
  • To discharge an obligation or debt.
  • To suffer consequences.
  • Derived terms
    * hell to pay * pay as you earn * pay-as-you-go * pay attention * pay back * pay down * payee * payer * pay for * pay for it * pay forward * pay in * payment * pay off * pay one's dues * pay one's respects * pay out * pay-per-view * pay respect * pay the bills * pay the freight * pay the penalty * pay the piper * pay through the nose * pay up * rob Peter to pay Paul * take or pay * you get what you pay for
    Hypernyms
    * (to give money) compensate
    Hyponyms
    * (to give money) bribe, disburse, fund, pay off, pay out, pay up, reimburse

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Money given in return for work; salary or wages.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=10 , passage=The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.}}
    Derived terms
    * combat pay * danger pay

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Operable or accessible on deposit of coins.
  • Pertaining to or requiring payment.
  • Etymology 2

    (etyl) peier, from (etyl) (lena) .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (nautical) To cover (the bottom of a vessel, a seam, a spar, etc.) with tar or pitch, or a waterproof composition of tallow, resin, etc.; to smear.
  • Statistics

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    Anagrams

    * * * 1000 English basic words ----