different between avail vs account

English

Etymology

From Middle English availen (“to be of use”), from Old French a (“to”) + vail (from valoir (“to be worth”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??ve?l/
• Rhymes: -e?l

Verb

avail (third-person singular simple present avails, present participle availing, simple past and past participle availed)

1. (transitive, often reflexive) To turn to the advantage of.

2. (transitive) To be of service to.

3. (transitive) To promote; to assist.

4. (intransitive) To be of use or advantage; to answer or serve the purpose; to have strength, force, or efficacy sufficient to accomplish the object.
5. (India, Africa, elsewhere proscribed) To provide; to make available.

Antonyms

• disavail

Derived terms

• available
• disavail

Related terms

Translations

Noun

avail (plural avails)

1. Effect in achieving a goal or aim; purpose, use (now usually in negative constructions). [from 15^thc.]
   • Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.

   • 2014, Paul Doyle, "Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter", The Guardian, 18 October:

     At half-time, Poyet replaced Wes Brown with Liam Bridcutt in the heart of defence and sent out the rest of the players to atone for their first-half mistakes. To no avail.

2. (now only US) Proceeds; profits from business transactions. [from 15^thc.]
   • 1862, Elijah Porter Barrows, The State And Slavery

     the avails of their own industry

3. (television, advertising) An advertising slot or package.
4. (US, politics, journalism) A press avail.

5. (Britain, acting) Non-binding notice of availability for work.
6. (oil industry) A readily available stock of oil.
7. (obsolete) Benefit; value, profit; advantage toward success. [15^th-19^thc.]
8. (obsolete, poetic) Effort; striving.

Usage notes

• (success or benefit): Very often encountered in negative phrases, such as of or to no or little avail.

Translations

Anagrams

• Alavi, Alvia, Avila

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?.?ka?nt/
• Rhymes: -a?nt
• Hyphenation: ac?count

Etymology 1

From Middle English account, acounte, accounten, from Anglo-Norman acunte (“account”), from Old French aconte, from aconter (“to reckon”), from Latin comput? (“to sum up”).

Noun

account (plural accounts)

1. (accounting) A registry of pecuniary transactions; a written or printed statement of business dealings or debts and credits, and also of other things subjected to a reckoning or review. [from c. 1300]
2. (banking) A bank account.
   • 1910, Journal of the American Bankers Association Vol. XI, No. 1, American Bankers Association, page 3:

     The Pueblo bank has advised that the operator opened an account at that bank with currency, and a few days later withdrew the amount.

3. A statement in general of reasons, causes, grounds, etc., explanatory of some event; a reason of an action to be done.

   Synonyms: accounting, explanation
4. A reason, grounds, consideration, motive; a person's sake.
5. A record of events; a relation or narrative. [from c. 1610]

   Synonyms: narrative, narration, relation, recital, report, description, explanation

   • 1657, James Howell, Londonopolis: An Historical Discourse or Perlustration of the City of London

     A laudible account of the city of London.
6. An estimate or estimation; valuation; judgment.
7. Importance; worth; value; esteem; judgement.
8. Authorization as a specific registered user in accessing a system.

   Synonyms: membership, registration

   Meronym: username

9. (archaic) A reckoning; computation; calculation; enumeration; a record of some reckoning.
10. Profit; advantage.

Usage notes

• Abbreviations: (business): A/C, a/c, acct., acc.
• Account, narrative, narration, recital are all words applied to different modes of rehearsing a series of events
  • Account turns attention not so much to the speaker as to the fact related, and more properly applies to the report of some single event, or a group of incidents taken as whole; for example, a vivid account of a battle, of a shipwreck, of an anecdote, etc.
  • A narrative is a continuous story of connected incidents, such as one friend might tell to another; for example, a narrative of the events of a siege, a narrative of one's life, the narrative of the film etc.
  • Narration is usually the same as narrative, but is sometimes used to describe the mode of relating events; as, his powers of narration are uncommonly great.
  • Recital denotes a series of events drawn out into minute particulars, usually expressing something which peculiarly interests the feelings of the speaker; such as, the recital of one's wrongs, disappointments, sufferings, etc, a piano recital (played without sheet music), a recital of a poem (learned by heart).

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ????? (akaunto)
• ? Swahili: akaunti

Translations

Etymology 2

From Old French acounter, accomptere et al., from a- + conter (“to count”)). Compare count.

Verb

account (third-person singular simple present accounts, present participle accounting, simple past and past participle accounted)

1. To provide explanation.
   1. (obsolete, transitive) To present an account of; to answer for, to justify. [14th-17th c.]
   2. (intransitive, now rare) To give an account of financial transactions, money received etc. [from 14th c.]
   3. (transitive) To estimate, consider (something to be as described). [from 14th c.]

      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:deem

      • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, III.8:

        The Pagan Hercules, why was he accounted a hero?

   4. (intransitive) To consider that. [from 14th c.]

      • Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

   5. (intransitive) To give a satisfactory evaluation for financial transactions, money received etc. [from 15th c.]

   6. (intransitive) To give a satisfactory evaluation for (one's actions, behaviour etc.); to answer for. [from 16th c.]

   7. (intransitive) To give a satisfactory reason for; to explain. [from 16th c.]

   8. (intransitive) To establish the location for someone. [from 19th c.]

   9. (intransitive) To cause the death, capture, or destruction of someone or something (+ for). [from 19th c.]
2. To count.
   1. (transitive, now rare) To calculate, work out (especially with periods of time). [from 14th c.]
      • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica:

        neither the motion of the Moon, whereby moneths are computed; nor of the Sun, whereby years are accounted, consisteth of whole numbers, but admits of fractions, and broken parts, as we have already declared concerning the Moon.

   2. (obsolete) To count (up), enumerate. [14th-17th c.]
   3. (obsolete) To recount, relate (a narrative etc.). [14th-16th c.]
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.6:

        Long worke it were / Here to account the endlesse progeny / Of all the weeds that bud and blossome there [...].

Derived terms

Translations

Related terms

• accountable
• accountant

Further reading

• account on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• account (bookkeeping) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• account at OneLook Dictionary Search
• account in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English account.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k?u?nt/
• Hyphenation: ac?count

Noun

account n (plural accounts, diminutive accountje n)

1. a subscription to an electronic service

Related terms

• accountant

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: akun

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English account. Doublet of conto.

Noun

account m (invariable)

1. (computing) account

   Synonym: conto

Further reading

• account in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana