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Reputation vs Fame - What's the difference?

reputation | fame |

As nouns the difference between reputation and fame

is that reputation is what somebody is known for while fame is what is said or reported; gossip, rumour.

As a verb fame is

to make (someone or something) famous.

reputation

Noun

(en noun)
  • What somebody is known for.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1529 , author=John Frith , by= , title=A pistle to the Christen reader. The Revelation of Antichrist: Antithesis, citation , chapter= , isbn= , publisher=Luft [i.e. Hoochstraten] , location= , editor= , volume_plain= , page=117 , passage=And Balaam (or as the trueth of the hebrewe hath Bileam) doth signifie the people of no reputation / or the vayne people or they that are not counted for people. }}

    Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "reputation": good, great, excellent, bad, stellar, tarnished, evil, damaged, dubious, spotless, terrible, ruined, horrible, lost, literary, corporate, global, personal, academic, scientific, posthumous, moral, artistic.

    Synonyms

    * name

    Derived terms

    * reputational

    fame

    English

    Noun

    (-)
  • What is said or reported; gossip, rumour.
  • * 1667 , (John Milton), (Paradise Lost) , Book 1, ll. 651-4:
  • There went a fame in Heav'n that he ere long / Intended to create, and therein plant / A generation, whom his choice regard / Should favour […].
  • * 2012 , Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex , Penguin 2013, p. 23:
  • If the accused could produce a specified number of honest neighbours to swear publicly that the suspicion was unfounded, and if no one else came forward to contradict them convincingly, the charge was dropped: otherwise the common fame was held to be true.
  • One's reputation.
  • The state of being famous or well-known and spoken of.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.}}

    Derived terms

    * hall of fame * walk of fame

    Verb

    (fam)
  • To make (someone or something) famous.
  • Anagrams

    * ----