Refuse vs Reduce - What's the difference?
refuse | reduce |
(UK) Collectively, items or material that have been discarded; rubbish, garbage.
To decline (a request or demand).
* Bible, Isa. i. 20
* {{quote-news
, year=2011
, date=September 27
, author=Alistair Magowan
, title=Bayern Munich 2 - 0 Man City
, work=BBC Sport
To decline a request or demand, forbear; to withhold permission.
(military) To throw back, or cause to keep back (as the centre, a wing, or a flank), out of the regular alignment when troops are about to engage the enemy.
(obsolete) To disown.
* Shakespeare
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).
In transitive terms the difference between refuse and reduce
is that refuse is to decline (a request or demand) while reduce is to bring to an inferior state or condition.In intransitive terms the difference between refuse and reduce
is that refuse is to decline a request or demand, forbear; to withhold permission while reduce is to lose weight.As an adjective refuse
is discarded, rejected.As a noun refuse
is collectively, items or material that have been discarded; rubbish, garbage.refuse
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) .Noun
(-)Synonyms
* discards * garbage (US ) * rubbish (UK ) * trash (US ) * See alsoEtymology 2
From (etyl) refuser, from .Verb
(refus)- My request for a pay rise was refused .
- I refuse to listen to this nonsense any more.
- If ye refuse ye shall be devoured with the sword.
citation, page= , passage=City were outclassed thereafter and Roberto Mancini said that substitute Carlos Tevez refused to play.}}
- I asked the star if I could have her autograph, but she refused .
- to refuse the right wing while the left wing attacks
- Refuse thy name.
Usage notes
* This is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive . SeeSynonyms
* (decline) decline, reject, nill, say no to, turn down, veto, withsake * (decline a request or demand) say no, forbearreduce
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."
