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Tantamount vs Vital - What's the difference?

tantamount | vital |

As adjectives the difference between tantamount and vital

is that tantamount is equivalent in meaning or effect while vital is relating to, or characteristic of life.

As a verb tantamount

is (obsolete) to amount to as much; to be equivalent.

As a noun tantamount

is (obsolete) something which has the same value or amount (as something else).

tantamount

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • (obsolete) To amount to as much; to be equivalent.
  • (Jeremy Taylor)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Something which has the same value or amount (as something else).
  • * 1977 , the Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett , page 42:
  • For end thereof, not despondency but madness : for when Cossey understood that Hobday had called his wife a tantamount , he waited for him outside, and gave him what he called a pair of clippers over the ear.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Equivalent in meaning or effect.
  • It's tantamount to fraud.
    In this view, disagreement and treason are tantamount .
  • * De Quincey
  • the certainty that delay, under these circumstances, was tantamount to ruin
  • * 1981 , Del Martin, Battered Wives (page 90)
  • expecting the woman to take her attacker into physical custody is tantamount to preventing the arrest. If she could handle him, she probably would not need to call the police in the first place.

    Usage notes

    Tantamount is used almost exclusively in the phrase tantamount to , but may also be used by itself.

    Quotations

    * 2003': In Bosnia, as in Rwanda, however, passive neutrality was '''tantamount to complicity with the perpetrators of "ethnic cleansing" and mass murder — ''The New Yorker, 3 March 2003

    vital

    English

    (wikipedia vital)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Relating to, or characteristic of life.
  • vital''' energies; '''vital''' functions; '''vital actions
  • Necessary to the continuation of life; being the seat of life; being that on which life depends.
  • The brain is a vital organ.
  • * Spenser
  • Do the heavens afford him vital food?
  • Invigorating or life-giving.
  • Necessary to continued existence.
  • The transition to farming was vital for the creation of civilisation.
  • Relating to the recording of life events.
  • Birth, marriage and death certificates are vital records.
  • Very important.
  • It is vital that you don't forget to do your homework.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-14
  • , author=Simon Jenkins, authorlink=Simon Jenkins , title=We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys , volume=188, issue=2, page=23 , date=2012-12-21 , magazine= citation , passage=David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.}}
  • Containing life; living.
  • * Milton
  • spirits that live throughout, vital in every part
  • * Alexander Pope
  • The dart flew on, and pierced a vital part.
  • Capable of living; in a state to live; viable.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
  • Pythagoras and Hippocrates affirm the birth of the seventh month to be vital .

    Derived terms

    * vital force * vital organ * vital signs * vital statistics