# Regulate vs Limit - What's the difference?

regulate | limit |

## As verbs the difference between regulate and limit

is that regulate is to dictate policy while limit is to restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound.

## As a noun limit is

a restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.

## As an adjective limit is

(poker) being a fixed limit game.

# regulate

## English

### Verb

(regulat)
• To dictate policy.
• To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.
• * Macaulay
• the laws which regulate the successions of the seasons
• * Bancroft
• The herdsmen near the frontier adjudicated their own disputes, and regulated their own police.
• To adjust to a particular specification or requirement: regulate temperature.
• To adjust (a mechanism) for accurate and proper functioning.
• 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 put or maintain in order.
• to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances
to regulate one's eating habits

#### Derived terms

* deregulate * downregulate * upregulate

# limit

## English

### Etymology 1

From (etyl), from (etyl), from (etyl) .

#### Noun

(en noun)
• A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
• There are several existing limits to executive power.
Two drinks is my limit tonight.
• * 1839 , (Charles Dickens), Nicholas Nickleby , chapter 21:
• It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit ,
• * 1922 , , Ulysses , episode 17:
• Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space,
• * 2012 March 6, Dan McCrum, Nicole Bullock and Guy Chazan, Financial Times , “Utility buyout loses power in shale gas revolution”:
• At the time, there seemed to be no limit to the size of ever-larger private equity deals, with banks falling over each other to arrange financing on generous terms and to invest money from their own private equity arms.
• (mathematics) A value to which a sequence converges. Equivalently, the common value of the upper limit and the lower limit of a sequence: if the upper and lower limits are different, then the sequence has no limit (i.e., does not converge).
• The sequence of reciprocals has zero as its limit.
• (mathematics) Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
• Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
• (category theory) Given diagram F'' : ''J'' → ''C'', a cone (''L'', ''φ'') from ''L'' ∈ Ob(''C'') to ''F'' is the ''limit'' of ''F'' if it has the universal property that for any other cone (''N'', ''ψ'') from ''N'' ∈ Ob(''C'') to ''F'' there is a unique morphism ''u'' : ''N'' → ''L'' such that for all ''X'' ∈ Ob(''J ), $\phi_X \circ u = \psi_X$.
• (poker) Short for fixed limit.
• The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
• the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
• * Alexander Pope
• As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.
• (obsolete) The space or thing defined by limits.
• * Shakespeare
• The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally.
• (obsolete) That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
• * Shakespeare
• the dateless limit of thy dear exile
• * Shakespeare
• The limit of your lives is out.
• (obsolete) A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
• * Shakespeare
• I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
• (logic, metaphysics) A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
• ##### Synonyms
* (restriction) bound, boundary, limitation, restriction
##### Derived terms
* age limit * central limit theorem * city limits * elastic limit * in the limit * limit down * limit up * limitation * limitless * lower limit * outer limit * the sky is the limit * to the limit * time limit * unlimited * upper limit
##### Descendants
* German: (l)

* bound * function

(-)
• (poker) Being a fixed limit game.
• ### Etymology 2

From (etyl) ; see noun.

#### Verb

(en verb)
• To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound.
• *
• [The Chinese government] has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.
• (mathematics) To have a limit in a particular set.
• (obsolete) To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
• ##### Synonyms
* (restrict) cap; restrict; withstrain