different between worth vs position

English

Pronunciation

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

Etymology 1

From Middle English worth, from Old English weorþ, from Proto-Germanic *werþaz (“worthy, valuable”); from Proto-Indo-European *wert-.

Cognate with Dutch waard (adjective), Low German weert (adjective), German wert, Wert, Swedish värd, Welsh gwerth.

Adjective

worth (not comparable)

1. Having a value of; proper to be exchanged for.

2. Deserving of.
3. (obsolete, except in Scots) Valuable, worthwhile.
4. Making a fair equivalent of, repaying or compensating.

Usage notes

The modern adjectival senses of worth compare two noun phrases, prompting some sources to classify the word as a preposition. Most, however, list it an adjective, some with notes like "governing a noun with prepositional force." Fowler's Modern English Usage says, "the adjective worth requires what is most easily described as an object."

Joan Maling (1983) shows that worth is best analysed as a preposition rather than an adjective. CGEL (2002) analyzes it as an adjective.

Compare:

• Organic strawberries are worth paying extra money for.
• It's worth paying extra money for organic strawberries.

When "worth" is used as an adjective of a subject, the verb "to be" (usually associated with "worth") is singular or plural in accordance with the subject (in the first example, in the plural). In the other case, shown in the second example, the subject is the pronoun "it".

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

worth (countable and uncountable, plural worths)

1. (countable) Value.

   I’ll have a dollar's worth of candy, please.

   They have proven their worths as individual fighting men and their worth as a unit.

   stocks having a worth of two million pounds

2. (uncountable) Merit, excellence.

   Our new director is a man whose worth is well acknowledged.
3. (uncountable) Wealth, fortune, riches, property, possessions.
4. (uncountable) An amount that could be achieved or produced in a specified time.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English worthen, wurthen, werthen (“to be; exist; come into being; come into existence”), from Old English weorþan (“to come into being; be made; become; arise; be”), from Proto-West Germanic *werþan, from Proto-Germanic *werþan? (“to come about; happen; come into being; become”), from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn; turn out”).

Cognate with Dutch worden, Low German warrn, German werden, Old Norse verða (Norwegian verta, Swedish varda), Latin vertere.

Alternative forms

• word

Verb

worth (third-person singular simple present worths, present participle worthing, simple past worth or worthed, past participle worth or worthed or worthen)

1. (obsolete, except in set phrases) To be, become, betide.
   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 3, "Landlord Edmund"

     For, adds our erudite Friend, the Saxon weorthan equivalent to the German werden, means to grow, to become; traces of which old vocable are still found in the North-country dialects, as, ‘What is word of him?’ meaning ‘What is become of him?’ and the like. Nay we in modern English still say, ‘Woe worth the hour.’ [i.e. Woe befall the hour]

   Woe worth the man that crosses me.

   (May good fortune befall you, my friend.)

Derived terms

• forworth

References

• worth in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• worth in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• worth at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Joan Maling (1983), Transitive Adjectives: A Case of Categorial Reanalysis, in F. Henry and B. Richards (eds.), Linguistic Categories: Auxiliaries and Related Puzzles, vol.1, pp. 253-289.

Anagrams

• throw, whort, wroth

Scots

Etymology

From Old English weorþ

Adjective

worth (comparative mair worth, superlative maist worth)

1. Valuable, worth while.

English

Etymology

From Middle English posicioun, from Old French posicion, from Latin positio (“a putting, position”), from ponere, past participle positus (“to put, place”); see ponent. Compare apposition, composition, deposition; see pose.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /p??z?.?(?)n/
• (General American) enPR: p?-z??sh(?)n, IPA^(key): /p??z?.?(?)n/
• Rhymes: -???n
• Hyphenation (UK): po?si?tion, pos?i?tion, (US): po?si?tion

Noun

position (plural positions)

1. A place or location.
2. A post of employment; a job.
3. A status or rank.

   Chief of Staff is the second-highest position in the army.

4. An opinion, stand, or stance.

   My position on this issue is unchanged.

5. A posture.

   Stand in this position, with your arms at your side.

6. (figuratively) A situation suitable to perform some action.

7. (team sports) A place on the playing field, together with a set of duties, assigned to a player.

   Stop running all over the field and play your position!

8. (finance) An amount of securities, commodities, or other financial instruments held by a person, firm, or institution.
9. (finance) A commitment, or a group of commitments, such as options or futures, to buy or sell a given amount of financial instruments, such as securities, currencies or commodities, for a given price.
10. (arithmetic) A method of solving a problem by one or two suppositions; also called the rule of trial and error.
11. (chess) The full state of a chess game at any given turn.

Synonyms

• stead

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

• position on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

position (third-person singular simple present positions, present participle positioning, simple past and past participle positioned)

1. To put into place.
   • 26 June 2012, Simon Bowers in The Guardian, Tax crackdowns threaten Channel Islands' haven status[1]

     While other small nations with large banking sectors, such as Iceland and Ireland, have been undone by their reckless lending practices, the debt-free Channel Islands have always positioned themselves as dependable repositories of riches.

Synonyms

• stell (obsolete)

Translations

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• sopition

Finnish

Noun

position

1. Genitive singular form of positio.

French

Etymology

From Old French posicion, from Latin positio, positionem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /po.zi.sj??/

Noun

position f (plural positions)

1. position

Derived terms

Further reading

• “position” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Swedish

Pronunciation

Noun

position c

1. a place, a location, a position. A description of where something is located with respect to the surroundings, e.g. the satellites of the GPS system.
2. (team sports) a place on the playing field, together with a set of duties, assigned to a player.

Declension

Related terms

• positionera