different between seat vs state

English

Etymology

From Middle English sete, from Old English s?te and Old Norse sæti (“seat”), both from Proto-Germanic *s?tij? (“seat”); compare Old English set (“seat”). Compare also Old High German gisazi (German Gesäß), Middle Dutch gesaete. Sense of "residence, abode, established place" likely derived from cognate Old English s?te (“house”), related to Old High German s?za (“sedan, seat, domicile”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /si?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Noun

seat (plural seats)

1. Something to be sat upon.
   1. A place in which to sit.
   2. The horizontal portion of a chair or other furniture designed for sitting.

   3. A piece of furniture made for sitting; e.g. a chair, stool or bench; any improvised place for sitting.
      1. (aviation, military, slang) An ejection seat.

   4. The part of an object or individual (usually the buttocks) directly involved in sitting.

   5. The part of a piece of clothing (usually pants or trousers) covering the buttocks.
   6. (engineering) A part or surface on which another part or surface rests.

2. A location or site.
   1. (figuratively) A membership in an organization, particularly a representative body.

   2. The location of a governing body.
   3. (certain Commonwealth countries) An electoral district, especially for a national legislature.
   4. A temporary residence, such as a country home or a hunting lodge.
      • 1806, William Cobbett, The Parliamentary History of England

        A man of fortune, who lives in London, may, in plays, operas, routs, assemblies, French cookery, French sauces, and French wines, spend as much yearly, as he could do, were he to live in the most hospitable manner at his seat in the country.

   5. The place occupied by anything, or where any person, thing or quality is situated or resides; a site.

      • Where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is.

      • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Building

        He that builds a fair house upon an ill seat committeth himself to prison.

      • 1927-29, M.K. Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, translated 1940 by Mahadev Desai, Part I, Chapter xvii:

        I stopped taking the sweets and condiments I had got from home. The mind having taken a different turn, the fondness for condiments wore away, and I now relished the boiled spinach which in Richmond tasted insipid, cooked without condiments. Many such experiments taught me that the real seat of taste was not the tongue but the mind.

3. The starting point of a fire.
4. Posture, or way of sitting, on horseback.
   • 1876, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda Chapter 3

     She had so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

seat (third-person singular simple present seats, present participle seating, simple past and past participle seated)

1. (transitive) To put an object into a place where it will rest; to fix; to set firm.

2. (transitive) To provide with places to sit.
   • 1712, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies

     The guests were no sooner seated but they entered into a warm debate.

   • 1887, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, History of Woman Suffrage

     He used to seat you on the piano and then, with vehement gestures and pirouettings, would argue the case. Not one word of the speech did you understand.

3. (transitive) To request or direct one or more persons to sit.

4. (transitive, legislature) To recognize the standing of a person or persons by providing them with one or more seats which would allow them to participate fully in a meeting or session.

5. (transitive) To assign the seats of.

6. (transitive) To cause to occupy a post, site, or situation; to station; to establish; to fix; to settle.
   • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

     They had seated themselves in Nova Guiana.

7. (obsolete, intransitive) To rest; to lie down.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)

8. To settle; to plant with inhabitants.
   • 1747, William Stith, The History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia

     The Plantations, for the most Part, are high and pleasantly seated

9. To put a seat or bottom in.

Translations

See also

• seat of learning
• seat of wisdom
• seat of honor
• sedentary
• see
• sit

Anagrams

• AEST, ESTA, East, TEAs, east, eats, etas, sate, saté, seta, tase, teas

Romansch

Alternative forms

• (Rumantsch Grischun, Surmiran, Puter, Vallader) set
• (Sursilvan) siat

Etymology

From Latin septem, from Proto-Indo-European *sept??.

Number

seat

1. (Sutsilvan) seven

English

Etymology

Middle English (as a noun); adopted c. 1200 from both Old French estat and Latin status (“manner of standing, attitude, position, carriage, manner, dress, apparel; and other senses”), from stare (“to stand”). Doublet of estate and status. The sense of "polity" develops in the 14th century. Compare French être, Greek ???? (stéo), Italian stare, Portuguese estar, Romanian sta, and Spanish estar.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ste?t/
• Rhymes: -e?t

Noun

state (plural states)

2. A condition; a set of circumstances applying at any given time.
   1. (physics) A complete description of a system, consisting of parameters that determine all properties of the system.
      • 1977, J. B. Sykes and John Stewart Bell, translating Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, Course of Theoretical Physics Vol. 3: Quantum Mechanics: Non-relativistic Theory, p.28:

        States in which the energy has definite values are called stationary states of a system; they are described by wave functions ?_n which are the eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian operator, i.e. which satisfy the equation ??_n = E_n?_n, where E_n are the eigenvalues of the energy.

   2. (computing) The stable condition of a processor during a particular clock cycle.

   3. (computing) The set of all parameters relevant to a computation.

   4. (computing) The values of all parameters at some point in a computation.

   5. (sciences) The physical property of matter as solid, liquid, gas or plasma.
   6. (obsolete) Highest and stationary condition, as that of maturity between growth and decline, or as that of crisis between the increase and the abating of a disease; height; acme.
3. High social standing or circumstance.
   1. Pomp, ceremony, or dignity.

   2. Rank; condition; quality.
      • c. 1593, William Shakespeare, Richard III, [Act I, Scene iii]:

        And le?ned by that ?mall, God I be?eech him, / Thy honor, ?tate, and ?eate, is due to me.

   3. Condition of prosperity or grandeur; wealthy or prosperous circumstances; social importance.
   4. A chair with a canopy above it, often standing on a dais; a seat of dignity; also, the canopy itself.
   5. (obsolete) A great person, a dignitary; a lord or prince.
      • 1644, John Milton, Aeropagitica, page 1:

        They who to States and Governours of the Commonwealth direct their Speech, High Court of Parlament, or wanting ?uch acce??e in a private condition, write that which they fore?ee may advance the publick good?; I ?uppo?e them as at the beginning of no meane endeavour, not a little alter’d and mov’d inwardly in their mindes […]

   6. (obsolete) Estate, possession.
5. A polity.
   1. Any sovereign polity; a national or city-state government.
      • a. 1949, Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949)

        Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
   2. A political division of a federation retaining a notable degree of autonomy, as in the United States, Germany, or Australia.
   3. (obsolete) A form of government other than a monarchy.
   4. (anthropology) A society larger than a tribe. A society large enough to form a state in the sense of a government.
6. (mathematics, stochastic processes) An element of the range of the random variables that define a random process.
7. (grammar, semantics) The lexical aspect (aktionsart) of verbs or predicates that do not change over time.

   Antonym: occurrence

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Pages starting with “state”.

Translations

Verb

state (third-person singular simple present states, present participle stating, simple past and past participle stated)

1. (transitive) To declare to be a fact.

   • Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.

2. (transitive) To make known.

Usage notes

State is stronger or more definitive than say. It is used to communicate an absence of reasonable doubt and to emphasize the factual or truthful nature of the communication.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:communicate

Translations

Adjective

state (comparative more state, superlative most state)

1. (obsolete) Stately.

Related terms

• estate
• statistics
• status
• State

See also

• department
• province

Further reading

• state on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• state at OneLook Dictionary Search
• state in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• state in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• state in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Satet, Testa, Tetas, aetts, atest, taste, teats, testa

Afrikaans

Noun

state

1. plural of staat

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sta.te/
• Rhymes: -ate
• Hyphenation: stà?te

Etymology 1

Apheretic form of estate.

Noun

state f (plural stati)

1. (Tuscany) Alternative form of estate

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb

state

1. inflection of stare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the main entry.

Participle

state

1. feminine plural of stato

Anagrams

• setta, testa

References

• state in Dizionario Italiano Olivetti

Latin

Verb

st?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of st?

Participle

state

1. vocative masculine singular of status