qualify
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from Middle French qualifier (“to qualify”). Equivalent to quality + -fy.
Pronunciation[edit]
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkwɑl.ɪ.faɪ/, enPR: kwŏlʹĭ-fī
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkwɒl.ɪ.faɪ/, enPR: kwŏlʹĭ-fī
- (obsolete) IPA(key): /ˈkwæl.ɪ.faɪ/, enPR: kwălʹĭ-fī
- Hyphenation: qual‧i‧fy
Audio (US) (file)
Verb[edit]
qualify (third-person singular simple present qualifies, present participle qualifying, simple past and past participle qualified)
- To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.
- To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
- 1856 December, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Samuel Johnson”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC:
- He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession.
- To certify or license someone for something.
- To modify, limit, restrict or moderate something; especially to add conditions or requirements for an assertion to be true.
- 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 109”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
- O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify
- (now rare) To mitigate, alleviate (something); to make less disagreeable.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- 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.
- To compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage.
- To give individual quality to; to modulate; to vary; to regulate.
- 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:
- It hath no larynx […] to qualify the sound.
- (juggling) To throw and catch each object at least twice.
- to qualify seven balls you need at least fourteen catches
Antonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to describe or characterize something by listing its qualities
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to make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task
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to certify or license someone for something
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to modify, limit, restrict or moderate something
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to compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Noun[edit]
qualify
- (juggling) An instance of throwing and catching each prop at least twice.
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