# decide

Pronunciation: say "di-SYD" /dɪˈsaɪd/

## Verb

1. To reach a judgment about something, especially after careful deliberation.
   - Simple: To make up your mind about something after thinking it over.
   - _The committee debated all afternoon before they could decide._
   - _She weighed every option carefully and then decided._
2. To resolve a contest, problem, or dispute by choosing, determining, or settling on an outcome.
   - Simple: To settle a question, contest, or argument, or determine its outcome.
   - _A penalty shootout will decide the championship tonight._
   - _The court finally decided the long-running property dispute._
3. To bring someone to a decision; to be the factor that pushes a person to choose.
   - Simple: To make someone finally choose one way or another.
   - _We had argued about the trip for weeks, but a week of sunny forecasts finally decided us._
   - _If the home inspection turns up nothing serious, that should decide them, and they will make an offer._

## Verb

4. To cut off or sever one thing from another. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To cut something off, or to break one thing apart from another.

## Other meanings

- (verb) Of a Turing machine: to return a correct yes-or-no answer for a given problem on every possible input.

## Origin

Latin dēcīdere ("cut off, decide"), made of dē ("down from") and caedō ("cut"), passed through Old French decider into Middle English as deciden.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/decide (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).