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Qualify vs Merit - What's the difference?

qualify | merit |

As a verb qualify

is to describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.

As a noun qualify

is (juggling) an instance of throwing and catching each prop at least twice.

As a proper noun merit is

.

qualify

English

Verb

  • To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.
  • To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
  • * Macaulay
  • He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession.
  • To certify or license someone for something.
  • To modify, limit, restrict or moderate something; especially to add conditions or requirements for an assertion to be true.
  • *1598 , Shakespeare,
  • *:O! never say that I was false of heart,
  • *:Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify
  • To mitigate, alleviate (something); to make less disagreeable.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.vi:
  • he balmes and herbes thereto applyde, / And euermore with mighty spels them charmd, / That in short space he has them qualifyde , / And him restor'd to health, that would haue algates dyde.
  • To compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage.
  • To give individual quality to; to modulate; to vary; to regulate.
  • * Sir Thomas Browne
  • It hath no larynx to qualify the sound.
  • (juggling) To throw and catch each object at least twice.
  • Antonyms

    * unqualify

    Noun

  • (juggling) An instance of throwing and catching each prop at least twice.
  • merit

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something deserving positive recognition.
  • His reward for his merit was a check for $50.
  • Something worthy of a high rating.
  • A claim to commendation or reward.
  • The quality of deserving reward.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Reputation is oft got without merit , and lost without deserving.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known, / And every author's merit , but his own.
  • Reward deserved; any mark or token of excellence or approbation.
  • His teacher gave him ten merits .
  • * Prior
  • those laurel groves, the merits of thy youth
  • (obsolete) The quality or state of deserving either good or bad; desert.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Be it known, that we, the greatest, are misthought / For things that others do; and when we fall, / We answer others' merits in our name.

    Synonyms

    * (l) * (l)

    Antonyms

    * (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To earn or to deserve.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited .}}
  • To be worthy or deserving.
  • (obsolete, rare) To reward.
  • (Chapman)

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l)

    Anagrams

    * ----