different between purchase vs prize

English

Etymology

From Middle English purchasen, from Anglo-Norman purchacer (“seek to obtain”) from pur- (from Latin pro-) + chac(i)er (“to chase, pursue”). Compare Old French porchacier (“to follow, to chase”), which has given French pourchasser (“to chase without relent”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p?t??s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p??t??s/
• Hyphenation: pur?chase

Noun

purchase (countable and uncountable, plural purchases)

1. The acquisition of title to, or property in, anything for a price; buying for money or its equivalent.

2. That which is obtained, got or acquired, in any manner, honestly or dishonestly; property; possession; acquisition.
3. That which is obtained for a price in money or its equivalent.

4. (obsolete) The act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc.)

   • I'll […] get meat to save thee, / Or lose my life i’ th’ purchase.

5. A price paid for a house or estate, etc. equal to the amount of the rent or income during the stated number of years.
   • 1848, The Sessional Papers printed by order of the House of Lords

     Suppose a freehold house to be worth 20 years’ purchase […]

6. (uncountable, also figuratively) Any mechanical hold or advantage, applied to the raising or removing of heavy bodies, as by a lever, a tackle or capstan.

   Synonyms: contact, grip, hold

7. The apparatus, tackle or device by which such mechanical advantage is gained and in nautical terminology the ratio of such a device, like a pulley, or block and tackle.
8. (rock climbing, uncountable) The amount of hold one has from an individual foothold or ledge.

   Synonyms: foothold, support
9. (law, dated) Acquisition of lands or tenements by means other than descent or inheritance, namely, by one's own act or agreement.

Derived terms

• purchase order
• repurchase

Translations

Verb

purchase (third-person singular simple present purchases, present participle purchasing, simple past and past participle purchased)

1. To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent.

2. To pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.

   • that loves the thing he cannot purchase
3. To obtain by any outlay, as of labor, danger, or sacrifice, etc.

   to purchase favor with flattery
4. To expiate by a fine or forfeit.
5. To apply to (anything) a device for obtaining a mechanical advantage; to get a purchase upon, or apply a purchase to; to raise or move by mechanical means.

6. To put forth effort to obtain anything; to strive; to exert oneself.
   • 1523–1525, John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners, Froissart's Chronicles

     Duke John of Brabant purchased greatly that the Earl of Flanders should have his daughter in marriage.

7. To constitute the buying power for a purchase, have a trading value.

Synonyms

• (buy): procure

Derived terms

• purchasable
• purchasing agent
• purchasing power

Translations

Anagrams

• search up

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English prise, from Old French prise (“a taking, capture, a seizure, a thing seized, a prize, booty, also hold, purchase”), past participle of prendre (“to take, to capture”), from Latin prendere (“to take, seize”); see prehend. Compare prison, apprise, comprise, enterprise, purprise, reprisal, surprise, etc.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?a?z/
• • Rhymes: -a?z
• Homophones: pries, prise

Noun

prize (plural prizes)

1. That which is taken from another; something captured; a thing seized by force, stratagem, or superior power.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 4, Canto 4, p. 54,^[1]

     […] wherefore he now begunne

     To challenge her anew, as his owne prize,

     Whom formerly he had in battell wonne,

2. (military, nautical) Anything captured by a belligerent using the rights of war; especially, property captured at sea in virtue of the rights of war, as a vessel.
3. An honour or reward striven for in a competitive contest; anything offered to be competed for, or as an inducement to, or reward of, effort.
   • 1676, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe, London: Henry Herringman, Act 5, p. 73,^[2]

     I fought and conquer’d, yet have lost the prize.

4. That which may be won by chance, as in a lottery.
   • 1928, Weston Jarvis, Jottings from an Active Life, London: Heath Cranton, p. 256,^[3]

     Cecil Rhodes […] was never tired of impressing upon one that the fact of being an Englishman was “the greatest prize in the lottery of life,” and that it was that thought which always sustained him when he was troubled.

5. Anything worth striving for; a valuable possession held or in prospect.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Philippians 3.14,^[4]

     I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

6. (obsolete) A contest for a reward; competition.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2,^[5]

     Like one of two contending in a prize,

     That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes […]

7. A lever; a pry; also, the hold of a lever.

   Synonym: prise

Usage notes

Do not confuse with price.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• prise
• price

Etymology 2

From Middle English prysen, borrowed from Old French priser (“to set a price or value on, esteem, value”), from pris (“price”), from Latin pretium (“price, value”), whence price; see also praise, a doublet. Compare appraise, apprize.

Verb

prize (third-person singular simple present prizes, present participle prizing, simple past and past participle prized)

1. To consider highly valuable; to esteem.
   • c. 1611, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III, Scene 1,^[6]

     […] I

     Beyond all limit of what else i’ the world

     Do love, prize, honour you.

   • 1676, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe, London: Henry Herringman, Act V, p. 83,^[7]

     I pris’d your Person, but your Crown disdain.

   • 2013, J. M. Coetzee, The Childhood of Jesus, London: Harvill Secker, Chapter 20, p. 167,^[8]

     ‘ […] An old broken cup has no value. No one prizes it.’

     ‘I prize it. It’s my museum, not yours.’

2. (obsolete) To set or estimate the value of; to appraise; to price; to rate.
   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act III, Scene 2,^[9]

     […] no life,

     I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,

   • 1611 King James Version of the Bible, Zechariah 11.13,^[10]

     […] a goodly price that I was prized at.

3. To move with a lever; to force up or open; to prise or pry.
4. (obsolete) To compete in a prizefight.

Derived terms

• foreprize
• outprize
• overprize
• prizable
• prizer
• underprize
• unprizable
• unprized

Translations

Etymology 3

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Adjective

prize (not comparable)

1. Having won a prize; award-winning.

   a prize vegetable

2. first-rate; exceptional

   He was a prize fool.

Etymology 4

Alternative forms.

Noun

prize (plural prizes)

1. Obsolete form of price. [16th–19th c.]
   • 1777, Joshua Reynolds, in John Ingamells, John Edgcumbe (eds.), The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Yale 2000, p. 69:

     My prizes – for a head is thirty five Guineas – As far as the Knees seventy – and for a whole-length one hundred and fifty.

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• pizer, rezip