Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To carry out or fulfill the command, order, or instruction of.
- v. To carry out or comply with (a command, for example).
- v. To behave obediently.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To comply with the wishes or commands of; submit to, as in duty bound; be subject to; serve with dutifulness.
- To comply with; carry out; perform; execute.
- To submit to the power, control, or influence of: as, a ship obeys her helm.
- To submit (one's self).
- To yield or give up; submit to power, authority, control, or influence; do as bidden or directed: as, will you obey? Formerly sometimes followed by to.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To do as ordered by (a person, institution etc), to act according to the bidding of.
- v. intransitive To do as one is told.
- v. obsolete, intransitive To be obedient, compliant (to a given law, restriction etc.).
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To give ear to; to execute the commands of; to yield submission to; to comply with the orders of.
- v. To submit to the authority of; to be ruled by.
- v. To yield to the impulse, power, or operation of.
- v. To give obedience.
WordNet 3.0
- v. be obedient to
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman obeir, obeier et al., Old French obeir, from Latin oboedire (also obēdīre ("to listen to, harken, usually in extended sense, obey, be subject to, serve")), from ob- ("before, near") + audīre ("to hear"). Compare audient. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English obeien, from Old French obeir, from Latin oboedīre, to listen to : ob-, to; see ob- + audīre, to hear; see au- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Helen, in a cream-colored sheath, her hair clipped with a beaded tiara, repeated similar promises, her throat tightening ever so slightly around the word obey.”
“He thought Alesandra had already fallen asleep and was just easing away from her when she whispered, “I dislike the word obey, Colin.””
“In the modern vows, however, the word 'obey' is excluded.”
“The only rule the king has to obey is that eventually he has to call every prisoner in an arbitrary number of times.”
“They must live here or there, marry so and so, or forfeit favour -- in short, obey the parental head.”
“So they returned to the palace, mourning for their separation from him, especially the youngest, with whom no rest would stay nor would Patience her call obey, but she wept night and day.”
“Equality is the soul of friendship: marriage, to give delight, must join two minds, not devote a slave to the will of an imperious lord; whatever conveys the idea of subjection necessarily destroys that of love, of which I am so convinced, that I have always wished the word obey expunged from the marriage ceremony.”
“God had often declared that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, that sacrifice and offering he would not; the legal sacrifices had their virtue and value from the institution, and the reference they had to Christ the great propitiation; but otherwise, of themselves, it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.”
“To obey is better than sacrifice; for angels obey, but do not sacrifice.”
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
“No; to obey is better than sacrifice, and to love God and our neighbour better than all burnt-offerings, so much better that God by his prophets often told them that their sacrifices were not only not acceptable, but abominable, to him, while they lived in sin; instead of pleasing him, he looked upon them as a mockery, and therefore an affront and provocation to him; see Prov. xv.”
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obey’.
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Tati's list
comfortable
comfortable, avocado, avoid, beautiful, beer, bear, brief, breath, bug, bias, burn, case and 97 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1696 more...
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bianxie's list
cruel, asphyxiate, merciless, mercy, masochism, sadism, osculate, loquacious, vehement, pinnacle, rough, macabre and 77 more...
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cool
digress, corrupt, guerrilla, black, catatonic, cryptic, classic, dinosaur, trite, obey, glycerine, machevellian and 20 more...
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