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Apparent vs Approximate - What's the difference?

apparent | approximate |

As adjectives the difference between apparent and approximate

is that apparent is capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view while approximate is approaching; proximate; nearly resembling.

As a verb approximate is

to carry or advance near; to cause to approach.

apparent

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view.
  • * 1667, (John Milton), (Paradise Lost) , ,
    • […] Hesperus, that led / The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, / Rising in clouded majesty, at length / Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light, / And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.
  • Clear or manifest to the understanding; plain; evident; obvious; known; palpable; indubitable.
  • * (William Shakespeare), ,
    • Salisbury: It is apparent foul-play; and ’tis shame / That greatness should so grossly offer it: / So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.
  • * 1897 , (Bram Stoker), (Dracula) Chapter 20
    • When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries.
  • Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, but not necessarily opposed to, true or real); seeming.
  • * 1785, (Thomas Reid), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man , Essay II (“Of the Powers we have by means of our External Senses”), Chapter XIX (“Of Matter and of Space”),
    • What (George Berkeley) calls visible magnitude was by astronomers called apparent magnitude.
  • * 1848 , , (The History of England from the Accession of James the Second) ,
    • To live on terms of civility, and even of apparent friendship.
  • * 1911 , , “”,
    • This apparent motion is due to the finite velocity of light, and the progressive motion of the observer with the earth, as it performs its yearly course about the sun.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Boundary problems , passage=Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.}}

    Usage notes

    * The word (term) has two common uses that are almost in opposition. One means roughly “clear; clearly true”, and serves to make a statement more decisive: *: It was apparent that no one knew the answer. (=No one knew the answer, and it showed.) * The other is roughly “seeming; to all appearances”, and serves to make a statement less decisive: *: The apparent source of the hubbub was a stray kitten. (=There was a stray kitten, and it seemed to be the source of the hubbub.) * The same ambivalence occurs with the derived adverb (apparently), which usually means “seemingly” but can also mean “clearly”, especially when it is modified by another adverb, such as (quite).

    Synonyms

    * (easy to see) visible, distinct, plain, obvious, clear * (easy to understand) distinct, plain, obvious, clear, certain, evident, manifest, indubitable, notorious, transparent * (seeming to be the case) illusory, superficial

    Antonyms

    * (within sight or view) hidden, invisible * (clear to the understanding) ambiguous, obscure

    Derived terms

    * apparency * apparent horizon * apparent time * apparently * apparentness * heir apparent

    Related terms

    * apparition * appear * appearance

    References

    * ----

    approximate

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Approaching; proximate; nearly resembling.
  • Near correctness; nearly exact; not perfectly accurate.
    • Approximate results or values.
    To help carry out its mission, NASA's Genesis spacecraft has on board an ion monitor to record the speed, density, temperature and approximate composition of the solar wind ions.

    Antonyms

    * exact, precise

    Derived terms

    () * approximately * approximation * approximative

    Verb

    (approximat)
  • To carry or advance near; to cause to approach.
    • To approximate the inequality of riches to the level of nature. --Burke.
  • To come near to; to approach.
    • The telescope approximates perfection. --J. Morse.
  • To estimate.

    • Quotations

    When you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth.
    — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax