different between sway vs supremacy

English

Etymology

Earlier swey (“to fall, swoon”), from Middle English sweyen, from Old Norse sveigja (“to bend, bow”), from Proto-Germanic *swaigijan? (compare Saterland Frisian swooie (“to swing, wave, wobble”), Dutch zwaaien, Dutch Low Saxon sweuen (“to sway in the wind”), from Proto-Indo-European *sweh?- (compare Lithuanian sva?gti (“to become giddy or dizzy”), the second element of Avestan ????????????????????-????????????????????????????? (paⁱri-šxuaxta, “to surround”), Sanskrit ?????? (svájate, “he embraces, enfolds”).

The noun derived from the verb.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sw?, IPA^(key): /swe?/
• Rhymes: -e?

Noun

sway (countable and uncountable, plural sways)

1. The act of swaying; a swaying motion; a swing or sweep of a weapon.
2. A rocking or swinging motion.

3. Influence, weight, or authority that inclines to one side
4. Preponderance; turn or cast of balance.
5. Rule; dominion; control; power.
6. A switch or rod used by thatchers to bind their work.
7. The maximum amplitude of a vehicle's lateral motion.

Translations

Verb

sway (third-person singular simple present sways, present participle swaying, simple past and past participle swayed)

1. To move or swing from side to side; or backward and forward; to rock.

   • Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

2. To move or wield with the hand; to swing; to wield.
3. To influence or direct by power, authority, persuasion, or by moral force; to rule; to govern; to guide. Compare persuade.

   • This was the race / To sway the world, and land and sea subdue.
4. To cause to incline or swing to one side, or backward and forward; to bias; to turn; to bend; warp.
   • 1663, John Tillotson, The Wisdom of being Religious

     Let not temporal and little advantages sway you against a more durable interest.

5. (nautical) To hoist (a mast or yard) into position.

6. To be drawn to one side by weight or influence; to lean; to incline.
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, A Discourse of a War with Spain

     The balance sways on our part.

7. To have weight or influence.
   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     The example of sundry churches […] doth sway much.

8. To bear sway; to rule; to govern.

Derived terms

• asway

Translations

See also

• persuade

Anagrams

• -ways, Yaws, ways, yaws

English

Etymology

From supreme +? -acy (a variant of -cy). Compare with supremity and New Latin suprematia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /su?p??m?si/
• Hyphenation: su?prem?a?cy

Noun

supremacy (usually uncountable, plural supremacies)

1. The quality of being supreme.
2. Power over all others.
3. (in combination) The ideology that a specified group is superior to others or should have supreme power over them.
   • 2004, Andrew Michael Manis, Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century, Mercer University Press (?ISBN), page 139:

     Fighting a war against Hitler's Nazi ideology, with its doctrine of Aryan supremacy and its "final solution" to protect against an "inferior people," accentuated the final irony of an America fighting a racist ideology while trying to keep its own racist ideology intact.

4. (in combination) A state of privilege for a specified group relative to other people in society.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? French: suprématie
  • ? Polish: supremacja
  • ? Portuguese: supremacia
  • ? Romanian: suprema?ie
  • ? Spanish: supremacía
  • ? Galician: supremacía

Derived terms

• supremacist
• supremacism

Translations

References

• “supremacy”, in OED Online ?, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000
• supremacy at OneLook Dictionary Search