different between obedient vs obey

English

Etymology

From Middle English obedient, from Old French obedient, from Latin oboedi?ns, present active participle of oboedi? (“obey”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??bi?d??nt/, /???bi?d??nt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??bidi?nt/, /o??bidi?nt/
• Hyphenation: obe?di?ent

Adjective

obedient (comparative more obedient, superlative most obedient)

1. Willing to comply with the commands, orders, or instructions of those in authority.

Synonyms

• hearsome
• dutiful

Antonyms

• disobedient
• dominant

Related terms

• obedience
• obey

Translations

Noun

obedient (plural obedients)

1. One who obeys.
   • 2002, John Michael Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (page 48)

     Damn the obedients and hail the defiants if you will; the experiment does not motivate confidence about how particular subjects would behave in markedly dissimilar situations.

Further reading

• obedient in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• obedient in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin oboedi?ns, present active participle of oboedi? (“obey”).

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /o.b?.di?ent/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /u.b?.di?en/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /o.be.di?ent/

Adjective

obedient (masculine and feminine plural obedients)

1. obedient

   Antonym: desobedient

Derived terms

• obedientment

Related terms

• obediència
• obeir

Further reading

• “obedient” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Latin

Verb

ob?dient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of ob?di?

Old French

Etymology

From Latin oboedi?ns, present active participle of oboedi? (“obey”).

Adjective

obedient m (oblique and nominative feminine singular obedient or obediente)

1. obedient

Declension

English

Etymology

From Middle English obeyen, from Anglo-Norman obeir, obeier et al., Old French obeir, from Latin oboedi? (also ob?di? (“to listen to, harken, usually in extended sense, obey, be subject to, serve”)), from ob- (“before, near”) + audi? (“to hear”). Compare audient. In Latin, ob + audire would have been expected to become Classical Latin *ob?di? (compare in + claud? becoming incl?d?), but it has been theorized that the usual law court associations of the word for obeying encouraged a false archaism from ? to oe, to oboedi? (compare Old Latin oinos ? Classical Latin ?nus).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /o??be?/, /??be?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???be?/, /??be?/
• Rhymes: -e?
• Hyphenation: obey

Verb

obey (third-person singular simple present obeys, present participle obeying, simple past and past participle obeyed)

1. (transitive) To do as ordered by (a person, institution etc), to act according to the bidding of.
2. (intransitive) To do as one is told.
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To be obedient, compliant (to a given law, restriction etc.).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iv:

     They were all taught by Triton, to obay / To the long raynes, at her commaundement [...].

Synonyms

• hearken

Antonyms

• disobey
• defy
• rebel
• resist
• violate (especially rules)

Related terms

• obedience
• obedient
• obeisance

Translations

Further reading

• obey in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• obey in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

References

Anagrams

• e-boy, yebo