different between qualify vs quality

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kw?l.?.fa?/, enPR: kw?l??-f?
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kw?l.?.fa?/, enPR: kw?l??-f?
• Hyphenation: qual?i?fy

Verb

qualify (third-person singular simple present qualifies, present participle qualifying, simple past and past participle qualified)

1. To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.
2. To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
3. To certify or license someone for something.
4. To modify, limit, restrict or moderate something; especially to add conditions or requirements for an assertion to be true.
   • 1598, Shakespeare, Sonnet 109

     O! never say that I was false of heart,

     Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify

5. (now rare) 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.

6. To compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage.
7. To give individual quality to; to modulate; to vary; to regulate.
8. (juggling) To throw and catch each object at least twice.

Antonyms

• unqualify

Related terms

• disqualify
• qualification
• qualifier

Translations

Noun

qualify

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

English

Etymology

From Middle English [Term?], from Old French qualité, from Latin qu?lit?tem, accusative of qu?lit?s, from qu?lis (“of what kind”), from Proto-Indo-European *k?o- (“who, how”). Cicero coined qualitas as a calque to translate the Ancient Greek word ??????? (poiót?s, “quality”), coined by Plato from ????? (poîos, “of what nature, of what kind”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kw?l?ti/
• (UK, obsolete) IPA^(key): /?kwæl?ti/, /?kwæl?t?/
• (US, father-bother merger, weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /?kw?l?ti/, [?k?w????i]

Noun

quality (countable and uncountable, plural qualities)

1. (uncountable) Level of excellence.
   • 2019, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     He called for China’s cooperation in efforts to improve air quality.

2. (countable) A property or an attribute that differentiates a thing or person.
3. (archaic) High social position. (See also the quality.)

4. (uncountable) The degree to which a man-made object or system is free from bugs and flaws, as opposed to scope of functions or quantity of items.
5. (thermodynamics) In a two-phase liquid–vapor mixture, the ratio of the mass of vapor present to the total mass of the mixture.
6. (emergency medicine, countable) The third step in OPQRST where the responder investigates what the NOI/MOI feels like.

7. (countable, Britain, journalism) A newspaper with relatively serious, high-quality content.
   • 1998, Bill Coxall, Lynton Robins, Robert Leach, Contemporary British Politics (page 164)

     It is argued that in the last ten years or so, quality broadsheet newspapers have become more like the tabloids. Anthony Sampson has argued that 'the frontier between the qualities and popular papers has virtually disappeared'.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often applied to "quality": high, good, excellent, exceptional, great, outstanding, satisfactory, acceptable, sufficient, adequate, poor, low, bad, inferior, dubious, environmental, visual, optical, industrial, total, artistic, educational, physical, musical, chemical, spiritual, intellectual, architectural, mechanical.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:characteristic

Hyponyms

• human quality
• industrial quality

Coordinate terms

• (a property that differentiates): quiddity

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

quality (comparative more quality, superlative most quality)

1. Being of good worth, well made, fit for purpose.

Derived terms

• qualityness

Related terms

• qualia
• qualitative

Translations

References

• Quality (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

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