Ruin vs Reduce - What's the difference?
ruin | reduce |
The remains of a destroyed or dilapidated construction, such as a house or castle.
*(Joseph Addison) (1672–1719)
*:The Veian and the Gabian towers shall fall, / And one promiscuous ruin' cover all; / Nor, after length of years, a stone betray / The place where once the very ' ruins lay.
*(Joseph Stevens Buckminster) (1751-1812)
*:The labour of a day will not build up a virtuous habit on the ruins of an old and vicious character.
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=Foreword (lb) The state of being a ruin, destroyed or decayed.
:
(lb) Something that leads to serious trouble or destruction.
:
*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
*:The errors of young men are the ruin of business.
*
*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin —but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.
(lb) A fall or tumble.
*(George Chapman) (1559-1634)
*:His ruin startled the other steeds.
A change that destroys or defeats something; destruction; overthrow.
:
*(Thomas Gray) (1716-1771)
*:Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
to cause the ruin of.
* 1883 ,
To destroy or make something no longer usable.
* Longfellow
To upset or mess up the plans or progress of, or to put into disarray; to spoil.
To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.
* to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
, author=Stephen Ledoux
, title=Behaviorism at 100
, volume=100, issue=1, page=60
, magazine=
To lose weight.
To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.
* to reduce a sergeant to the ranks
* An ancient but reduced family. --.
* Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.
* Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .
* Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.
*
To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.
* to reduce a province or a fort
To bring to an inferior state or condition.
* to reduce a city to ashes
(cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.
(chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.
(metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.
(mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.
(legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").
* It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.
(medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.
(military) To reform a line or column from (a square).
As a noun ruin
is .As a verb reduce is
to bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.ruin
English
Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.}}
Verb
(en verb)- In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us; for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted...
- He ruined his new white slacks by accidentally spilling oil on them.
- By the fireside there are old men seated, / Seeling ruined cities in the ashes.
- My car breaking down just as I was on the road ruined my vacation.
Synonyms
* destroy * fordo * ruinate * wreckAntonyms
* build * construct * found * produceExternal links
* * * ----reduce
English
Verb
citation, passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}
- Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."