What's the difference between ask and persuade?

Ask


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To request; to seek to obtain by words; to petition; to solicit; -- often with of, in the sense of from, before the person addressed.
  • (v. t.) To require, demand, claim, or expect, whether by way of remuneration or return, or as a matter of necessity; as, what price do you ask?
  • (v. t.) To interrogate or inquire of or concerning; to put a question to or about; to question.
  • (v. t.) To invite; as, to ask one to an entertainment.
  • (v. t.) To publish in church for marriage; -- said of both the banns and the persons.
  • (v. i.) To request or petition; -- usually followed by for; as, to ask for bread.
  • (v. i.) To make inquiry, or seek by request; -- sometimes followed by after.
  • (n.) A water newt.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Here we have asked whether protection from blood-borne antigens afforded by the blood-brain barrier is related to the lack of MHC expression.
  • (2) In a debate in the House of Commons, I will ask Britain, the US and other allies to convert generalised offers of help into more practical support with greater air cover, military surveillance and helicopter back-up, to hunt down the terrorists who abducted the girls.
  • (3) Collins said she asked Sullivan several questions, including who the women were.
  • (4) People should ask their MP to press the government for a speedier response.
  • (5) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (6) I ask a friend to have a stab at, “down at cafe that does us butties”, and he said: “Something to do with his ass?” “Whose arse?” He looked panicked.
  • (7) Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week.
  • (8) The Hamilton-Wentworth regional health department was asked by one of its municipalities to determine whether the present water supply and sewage disposal methods used in a community without piped water and regional sewage disposal posed a threat to the health of its residents.
  • (9) Considerate touches includes the free use of cruiser bicycles (the best method of tackling the Palm Springs main drag), home-baked cookies … and if you'd like to get married, ask the manager: he's a minister.
  • (10) An age- and education-matched group of women with no family history of FXS was asked to predict the seriousness of problems they might encounter were they to bear a child with a handicapping condition.
  • (11) For example, 75% of them were asked about their family life, marital status and children in interviews.
  • (12) Other than failing to get a goal, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” From Lambert’s perspective there was an element of misfortune about the first and third goals, with Willian benefitting from handy ricochets on both occasions.
  • (13) But because current donor contributions are not sufficient to cover the thousands of schools in need of security, I will ask in the commons debate that the UK government allocates more.
  • (14) He had been just asked to open their new town hall, in the hope he might donate a Shakespeare statue.
  • (15) The information about her father's semi-brainwashing forms an interesting backdrop to Malala's comments when I ask if she ever wonders about the man who tried to kill her on her way back from school that day in October last year, and why his hands were shaking as he held the gun – a detail she has picked up from the girls in the school bus with her at the time; she herself has no memory of the shooting.
  • (16) After an introductory training program, the students asked the patients arriving at the hospital out-patient clinic for permission to observe them throughout the attendance given.
  • (17) When asked why the streets of London were not heaving with demonstrators protesting against Russia turning Aleppo into the Guernica of our times, Stop the War replied that it had no wish to add to the “jingoism” politicians were whipping up against plucky little Russia .
  • (18) In each of the clinics I visit I ask how much the surrogates are paid.
  • (19) Gwendolen Morgan, the lawyer at Bindmans dealing with the case, said: "We have grave concerns about the decision to use this draconian power to detain our client for nine hours on Sunday – for what appear to be highly questionable motives, which we will be asking the high court to consider.
  • (20) A subgroup of 40 patients was asked to complete a brief survey on medical care information and satisfaction.

Persuade


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To influence or gain over by argument, advice, entreaty, expostulation, etc.; to draw or incline to a determination by presenting sufficient motives.
  • (v. t.) To try to influence.
  • (v. t.) To convince by argument, or by reasons offered or suggested from reflection, etc.; to cause to believe.
  • (v. t.) To inculcate by argument or expostulation; to advise; to recommend.
  • (v. i.) To use persuasion; to plead; to prevail by persuasion.
  • (n.) Persuasion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Gordon Brown believes that the fact of the G20 summit has persuaded many tax havens, such as Switzerland and Liechtenstein, to indicate that they will adopt a more open approach.
  • (2) An official from Cafcass, the children and family court advisory service, tried to persuade the child in several interviews, but eventually the official told the court that further persuasion was inappropriate and essentially abusive.
  • (3) She kept it up for three years, until her son's letters finally persuaded her to cut down to one day a week.
  • (4) We simply do whatever nature needs and will work with anyone that wants to help wildlife.” His views might come as a surprise to some of the RSPB’s 1.1 million members, who would have been persuaded by its original pledge “to discourage the wanton destruction of birds”; they would equally have been a surprise to the RSPB’s detractors in the shooting world.
  • (5) That refusal seems to have persuaded Apple's team, which has been core to the development of WebKit since using it for the Safari browser, released in January 2003, to introduce WebKit2 earlier this year which did offer that capability.
  • (6) It seeks to acquaint them with 'ethical' arguments against their work which, because they are simple and plausible, persuade many people.
  • (7) Obama will meet with Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow as well, but US envoy George Mitchell has had no luck in recent weeks trying to persuade Netanyahu to compromise on the settlements.
  • (8) The charity Bite the Ballot , which persuaded hundreds of thousands to register before the last general election, is to set up “democracy cafes” in Starbucks branches, laying on experts to explain how to register and vote, and what the referendum is all about (Bite the Ballot does not take sides but merely encourages participation).
  • (9) The writer John Lanchester concedes that democracies will always need spies, but reading the Snowden documents persuaded him that piecing together habits of thought from internet searches takes things far beyond conventional spying: “Google doesn’t just know you’re gay before you tell your mum; it knows you’re gay before you do.
  • (10) But Richard Hall, director of infrastructure at Consumer Futures, a consumer watchdog, said Ofgem had "produced a lot of evidence that would persuade a third party that there is a trend [of rising prices]".
  • (11) McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate with an influential voice on US foreign affairs, is seen by the Obama administration as a potentially important intermediary in its intensive push to persuade Congress to swing behind the plan for airstrikes .
  • (12) According to Deborah Mattinson, his pollster, Brown " loved slogans and believed them to be imbued with a mystical power capable of persuading the most intransigent voter", and therefore went a bundle on them – not least " A future fair for all ", the surreal dud with which Labour went to the country in 2010, following 2005's equally idiotic " forward not back ".
  • (13) For a while North Korea refused to play, but after delicate negotiations the players were persuaded back on to the pitch and the correct flag was displayed alongside the team photos.
  • (14) When the owners of Manchester City finally managed to persuade Pep Guardiola to oversee the next stage of their masterplan it is fair to say they probably did not expect to be approaching Christmas scuffling with a team of Watford’s limitations for their first league win at home in almost three months.
  • (15) He has some suggestions for what might be done, including easing changing the planning laws to free up parts of the green belt, financial incentives to persuade local authorities to build, and the replacement of the council tax and stamp duty land tax with a new local property tax with automatic annual revaluations.
  • (16) Even if nobody switched party, the general election result would look very different to what’s predicted if millennials could be persuaded to vote at the same rate as pensioners, as polls factor in turnout differences and oversample the elderly accordingly.
  • (17) For some people, free cash will persuade them to take the plunge.
  • (18) The fact that the leave campaign are getting things as straightforward as this wrong should call into judgment the bigger argument about leaving the EU.” He said out campaigners were trying to persuade people to vote for Brexit solely on the back of an issue “that is not true”.
  • (19) We had already persuaded him to give us a little extra time, telling him we would both pay him on a particular day, but when that day rolled around, neither of us had the money.
  • (20) Nonetheless, the NSA persuaded Erwin Griswold, the former dean of Harvard law school, the then solicitor general of the United States, to knowingly lie to the United States supreme court that it was still a secret.