different between decisiveness vs exactitude

English

Etymology

decisive +? -ness

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??sa?s?vn?s/

Noun

decisiveness (uncountable)

1. The state or quality of being decisive.

Translations

English

Etymology

From French exactitude, from exact, from Latin exactus, perfect passive participle of exig? (“demand, claim as due" or "measure by a standard, weigh, test”), from ex (“out”) + ag? (“drive”).

Noun

exactitude (countable and uncountable, plural exactitudes)

1. Accuracy; attention to small details.

   Synonym: exactness

   Antonym: inexactitude

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 44, [1]

     […] when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct—say, rather, secret intelligence from the Deity—mostly swim in veins, as they are called; continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one tithe of such marvellous precision.

   • 1896, Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, Chapter 4, [2]

     He paced stiffly, looking with extreme exactitude at Lingard's face; looking neither to the right nor to the left but at the face only, as if there was nothing in the world but those features familiar and dreaded;

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak [3]

     In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration other than exactitude of meaning.

Related terms

• exact

Translations

Further reading

• exactitude in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• exactitude at OneLook Dictionary Search

References

French

Etymology

exact +? -itude

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.zak.ti.tyd/
• Rhymes: -yd
• Homophone: exactitudes

Noun

exactitude f (plural exactitudes)

1. exactitude, accuracy

Descendants

• ? English: exactitude

Further reading

• “exactitude” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).