different between worthy vs adequate

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?w??ði/
• (General American) enPR: wûr'th?, IPA^(key): /?w?ði/
• Rhymes: -??(r)ði
• Hyphenation: wor?thy

Etymology 1

From Middle English worthy, wurthi, from Old English *weorþi? (“"worthy"”), equivalent to worth +? -y. Cognate with Dutch waardig (“worthy”), Middle Low German werdig (“worthy”), German würdig (“worthy”), Swedish värdig (“worthy”), Icelandic verðugt (“worthy”).

Adjective

worthy (comparative worthier, superlative worthiest)

1. having worth, merit, or value
   • c. 1626, John Davies, The Original, Nature, and Immortality of the Soul

     This worthy mind should worthy things embrace.

2. honourable or admirable
3. deserving, or having sufficient worth
4. Suited; befitting.
   • […] whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.

   • The lodging is well worthy of the guest.

Derived terms

• markworthy
• noteworthy
• worthily
• worthiness

Related terms

• worthly

Translations

Noun

worthy (plural worthies)

1. a distinguished or eminent person

Related terms

• -worthy
• unworthy

Etymology 2

From Middle English worthien, wurthien, from Old English weorþian (“to esteem, honor, worship, distinguish, celebrate, exalt, praise, adorn, deck, enrich, reward”), from Proto-Germanic *werþ?n? (“to be worthy, estimate, appreciate, appraise”), from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn, wind”). Cognate with German werten (“to rate, judge, grade, score”), Swedish värdera (“to evaluate, rate, size up, assess, estimate”), Icelandic virða (“to respect, esteem”).

Verb

worthy (third-person singular simple present worthies, present participle worthying, simple past and past participle worthied)

1. (transitive) To render or treat as worthy; exalt; revere; honour; esteem; respect; value; reward; adore.
   • c. 1603-1606, William Shakespeare, King Lear

     And put upon him such a deal of man,
     That worthied him, got praises of the king […]

   • 1880, Sir Norman Lockyer, Nature:

     After having duly paid his addresses to it, he generally spends some time on the marble slab in front of the looking-glass, but without showing the slightest emotion at the sight of his own reflection, or worthying it with a song.

   • 1908, Edward Arthur Brayley Hodgetts, The court of Russia in the nineteenth century:

     And it is a poor daub besides," the Emperor rejoined scornfully, as he stalked out of the gallery without worthying the artist with a look.

   • 1910, Charles William Eliot, The Harvard classics: Beowulf:

     No henchman he worthied by weapons, if witness his features, his peerless presence!

Derived terms

• worthier
• worthying

Middle English

Etymology

From worth +? -y, from Old English weorþ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?w?rði?/

Adjective

worthy

1. worthy

Descendants

• English: worthy

English

Alternative forms

• adæquate (obsolete)

Etymology

Latin adaequatus, past participle of adaequare (“to make equal to”); ad + aequare (“to make equal”), aequus (“equal”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æd.?.kw?t/, (proscribed) /?æ.d?.k?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æd.?.kw?t/

Verb

• IPA^(key): /?æd.??kwe?t/

Adjective

adequate (comparative more adequate, superlative most adequate)

1. Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.

   Synonyms: acceptable, correspondent, proportionate, satisfactory, sufficient

   Antonym: inadequate

   • 1673, Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewomans Companion, London: Dorman Newman, “Of Habit, and the neatness and property thereof,” p. 61,^[1]

     Proportion therefore your Clothes to your bodies, and let them be proper for your persons. […] Agreeableness […] ought to be exact, and adequate both to age, person and condition, avoiding extremities on both sides, being neither too much out, nor in the fashions.

   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 31,^[2]

     Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance […]

   • 1853, Thomas De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches in Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers, Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, “Dublin,” p. 254,^[3]

     […] in those days, Ireland had no adequate champion; the Hoods and the Grattans were not up to the mark.

   • 1903, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Empty House” in The Return of Sherlock Holmes,^[4]

     All day as I drove upon my round I turned over the case in my mind, and found no explanation which appeared to me to be adequate.

   • 2009, J. M. Coetzee, Summertime, New York: Viking, p. 212,^[5]

     John was a perfectly adequate academic. A perfectly adequate academic but not a notable teacher.

Related terms

• adequacy
• adequation
• adequative

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

adequate (third-person singular simple present adequates, present participle adequating, simple past and past participle adequated)

1. (obsolete) To equalize; to make adequate.
   • 1622, Martin Fotherby, Atheomastix; clearing foure truthes, against atheists and infidels, London, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 208,^[6]

     Let me giue yet one instance more, of a truly intellectuall obiect, exactly adequated and proportioned vnto the intellectuall appetite.

2. (obsolete) To equal.
   • 1635, Robert Shelford, Theologia Amantis Deum, or A Treatise of the Divine Attributes in Five Pious and Learned Discourses, Cambridge, p. 227,^[7]

     […] though it be an impossibilitie for any creature to adequate God in his eternitie, yet he hath ordained all his sonnes in Christ to partake of it by living with him eternally.

Translations

Anagrams

• æquated

Italian

Verb

adequate

1. second-person plural present indicative of adequare
2. second-person plural imperative of adequare

Participle

adequate

1. feminine plural of the past participle of adequare