Regulate vs Define - What's the difference?
regulate | define |
To dictate policy.
To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.
* Macaulay
* Bancroft
To adjust to a particular specification or requirement: regulate temperature.
To adjust (a mechanism) for accurate and proper functioning.
To put or maintain in order.
To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
* Sir (Isaac Newton)
*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=
, title= (obsolete) To settle, decide (an argument etc.).
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.3:
To express the essential nature of something.
*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, volume=101, issue=3, page=178, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title= To state the meaning of a word, phrase, sign, or symbol.
To describe, explain, or make definite and clear.
To demark sharply the outlines or limits of an area or concept.
*{{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April, author=(Jan Sapp)
, volume=100, issue=2, page=164, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title= (mathematics) To establish the referent of a term or notation.
(computing, programming) A kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.
* 1996 , James Gosling, Henry McGilton, The Java Language Environment
* 1999 , Ian Joyner, Objects unencapsulated: Java, Eiffel, and C++ (page 309)
As verbs the difference between regulate and define
is that regulate is to dictate policy while define is to determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.As a noun define is
a kind of macro in source code that replaces one text string with another wherever it occurs.regulate
English
Verb
(regulat)- the laws which regulate the successions of the seasons
- The herdsmen near the frontier adjudicated their own disputes, and regulated their own police.
- to regulate a watch, i.e. adjust its rate of running so that it will keep approximately standard time
- to regulate the temperature of a room, the pressure of steam, the speed of a machine, etc.
- to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances
- to regulate one's eating habits
Derived terms
* deregulate * downregulate * upregulateExternal links
* * ----define
English
(Definition)Verb
(defin)- Ringsvery distinct and well defined .
Lee S. Langston
The Adaptable Gas Turbine, passage=Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo'', meaning ''vortex , and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.}}
- These warlike Champions, all in armour shine, / Assembled were in field the chalenge to define .
Crinkly Curves, passage=Cantor defined a one-to-one correspondence between the points of the square and the points of the line segment. Every point in the square was associated with a single point in the segment; every point in the segment was matched with a unique point in the square.}}
Race Finished, passage=Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?}}
Derived terms
* definable * definerNoun
(en noun)- From the computer programming perspective, Java looks like C and C++ while discarding the overwhelming complexities of those languages, such as typedefs, defines , preprocessor, unions, pointers, and multiple inheritance.
- Anyone who has attempted to do OO programming in a conventional language using defines will find out that it is impossible to realize the benefits easily, if at all, without compiler support.