qualify
verb
Simple meaning
To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kwahluhfySay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkwɑləfaɪ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
To successfully fall under some category or description by meeting requisite conditions.
To compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage.
Describe or portray the character or the qualities or peculiarities of
To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.
To give individual quality to; to modulate; to vary; to regulate.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
Used this way, qualify is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use qualify
- “You need to qualify for the loan before buying the new house.”
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Meeting the proper standards and requirements and training for an office or position or task.
The grammatical relation that exists when a word qualifies the meaning of the phrase.
A contestant who meets certain requirements and so qualifies to take part in the next stage of competition.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An adjective that ascribes to its noun the value of an attribute of that noun (e.g., `a nervous person' or `a musical speaking voice').
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: to make someone or or to become competent
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.