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Successful vs Succeed - What's the difference?

successful | succeed |

As an adjective successful

is resulting in success; assuring, or promotive of, success; accomplishing what was proposed; having the desired effect; prosperous; fortunate; happy.

As a verb succeed is

to follow in order; to come next after; hence, to take the place of.

successful

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Resulting in success; assuring, or promotive of, success; accomplishing what was proposed; having the desired effect; prosperous; fortunate; happy
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black), title=Internal Combustion
  • , chapter=1 citation , passage=If successful , Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the ever more expensive and then universally known killing hazards of gasoline cars: […] .}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
  • , volume=189, issue=2, page=27, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= The tao of tech , passage=The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you

    Synonyms

    * efficacious, effective, fruitful, rewarding, accomplished, profitable

    Antonyms

    * unsuccessful * failed

    Derived terms

    * successfully * successfulness

    succeed

    English

    Alternative forms

    * succede (dated)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To follow in order; to come next after; hence, to take the place of.
  • The king's eldest son succeeds his father on the throne.
    Autumn succeeds summer.
  • To obtain the object desired; to accomplish what is attempted or intended; to have a prosperous issue or termination; to be successful.
  • (obsolete, rare) To fall heir to; to inherit.
  • So, if the issue of the elder son succeed before the younger, I am king.
  • To come after; to be subsequent or consequent to; to follow; to pursue.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
  • Destructive effects succeeded the curse.
  • * 1919 ,
  • Her arms were like legs of mutton, her breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an impression of almost indecent nakedness, and vast chin succeeded to vast chin.
  • To support; to prosper; to promote.
  • * Dryden
  • Succeed my wish and second my design.
  • To come in the place of another person, thing, or event; to come next in the usual, natural, or prescribed course of things; to follow; hence, to come next in the possession of anything; -- often with to.
  • # To ascend the throne after the removal the death of the occupant.
  • To descend, as an estate or an heirloom, in the same family; to devolve.
  • To go under cover.
  • Antonyms

    * (follow in order) precede * fail, fall on one's face

    Derived terms

    * nothing succeeds like success * succedent * succeedingly