What's the difference between obtain and seize?

Obtain


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To hold; to keep; to possess.
  • (v. t.) To get hold of by effort; to gain possession of; to procure; to acquire, in any way.
  • (v. i.) To become held; to gain or have a firm footing; to be recognized or established; to subsist; to become prevalent or general; to prevail; as, the custom obtains of going to the seashore in summer.
  • (v. i.) To prevail; to succeed.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A former Labour minister, Nicholas Brown, said the public were frightened they "were going to be spied on" and that "illegally obtained" information would find its way to the public domain.
  • (2) Sperm specimens were obtained from 13 men participating in our in vitro fertilization program.
  • (3) As a consequence, similar response curves were obtained for urine specimens containing morphine or barbiturates.
  • (4) The nuclear origin of the Ha antigen was confirmed by the speckled nuclear immunofluorescence staining pattern given by purified antibody to Ha obtained from a specific immune precipitate.
  • (5) Manometric studies with resting cells obtained by growth on each of these sulfur sources yielded net oxygen uptake for all substrates except sulfite and dithionate.
  • (6) Although measurements are easily obtained with a tape measure, the validity of these measurements is not known.
  • (7) Multiple overlapping thin 3D slab acquisition is presented as a magnitude contrast (time of flight) technique which combines advantages from multiple thin slice 2D and direct 3D volume acquisitions to obtain high-resolution cross-sectional images of vessel detail.
  • (8) Since 1987, it has become possible to obtain immature ova from the living animal and to let them mature, fertilize and develop into embryos capable of transplantation outside the body.
  • (9) Symptomatic improvement was obtained in 14 of the 15 hands, and sensory-evoked response improved in 13 hands.
  • (10) These data indicate that RNA faithfully transfers "suppressive" as well as "positive" types of immune responses that have been reported previously for lymphocytes obtained directly from tumour-bearing and tumour-immune animals.
  • (11) These observations were confirmed by the killing curves in pooled serum obtained at peak and trough levels.
  • (12) The obtained results are used to study the relation between the acoustic characteristics of these vowels and the corresponding articulatory dimensions.
  • (13) Scatchard analyses of binding data obtained with synaptosomal preparations from 17-day-old embryos revealed two T3 binding sites.
  • (14) In the present study, respirometric quotients, the ratio of oral air volume expended to total volume expended, were obtained using separate but simultaneous productions of oral and nasal airflow.
  • (15) Maximal yields of lipid and aflatoxin were obtained with 30% glucose, whereas mold growth, expressed as dry weight, was maximal when the medium contained 10% glucose.
  • (16) Flow cytometric DNA analysis was performed on both fresh and on paraffin embedded samples obtained by gastroscopic biopsies in 5 patients with histologically normal gastric mucosa (20 specimens) and by radical gastrectomies in 9 cases of human gastric cancer (36 specimens).
  • (17) In experiments performed to determine whether PtdIns(4,5)P2 hydrolysis induced by TRH may have been caused by the elevation of [Ca2+]i, the following results were obtained: the effect of TRH to decrease the level of PtdIns(4,5)P2 was not reproduced by the calcium ionophore A23187 or by membrane depolarization with 50 mM K+; the calcium antagonist TMB-8 did not inhibit the TRH-induced decrease in PtdIns(4,5)P2; and, most importantly, inhibition by EGTA of the elevation of [Ca2+]i did not inhibit the TRH-induced decrease in PtdIns(4,5)P2.
  • (18) Variables included an ego-delay measure obtained from temporal estimations, perceptions of temporal dominance and relatedness obtained from Cottle's Circles Test, Ss' ages, and a measure of long-term posthospital adjustment.
  • (19) Data obtained with fenoldopam were corroborated with use of SK&F 38393, another dopamine D1-receptor agonist.
  • (20) Bipolar derivations with the maximum PSE always included the locations with the maximum PSE obtained from a linked ears reference.

Seize


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To fall or rush upon suddenly and lay hold of; to gripe or grasp suddenly; to reach and grasp.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by force.
  • (v. t.) To invade suddenly; to take sudden hold of; to come upon suddenly; as, a fever seizes a patient.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by virtue of a warrant or other legal authority; as, the sheriff seized the debtor's goods.
  • (v. t.) To fasten; to fix.
  • (v. t.) To grap with the mind; to comprehend fully and distinctly; as, to seize an idea.
  • (v. t.) To bind or fasten together with a lashing of small stuff, as yarn or marline; as, to seize ropes.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Batson believes there is a “mood” that needs to be seized upon.
  • (2) George Osborne said the 146,000 fall in joblessness marked "another step on the road to full employment" but Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) seized on news that earnings were failing to keep pace with prices.
  • (3) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (4) Among the dead were two young young officers, Major Mujahid Ali and Captain Usman, whose life stories the media seized upon, helped by the military's public relations machine.
  • (5) Remember, if he did seize group power and dispose of the Independent , he'd still be boss of the rest of INM: 200 or so papers and magazines around the world, dominant voices in Australasia, South Africa, India and Ireland itself, 100 million readers a week.
  • (6) Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.
  • (7) Generals who have mutinied have seized the capital of South Sudan's largest state, Jonglei, and its main oil-producing area, Unity State.
  • (8) The coroner also raised concerns that although the aim of the operation in which Duggan was killed was to take guns off the streets, little attempt was made to seize weapons believed to be held by Hutchinson-Foster.
  • (9) Employers seize the workers’ passports and the only body that can issue a permit for a worker to leave Qatar is the employer himself.
  • (10) Backlogs and staff shortages have long been seized upon by veterans groups lobbying for more resources, but it is the apparent cover-up of the scale of the problem that has transformed these latest complaints into a growing political problem for the White House.
  • (11) Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.
  • (12) A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts, saying Isis fighters had massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing Kocho.
  • (13) "This is a formidable challenge, requiring step changes in the rate at which we improve our energy efficiency and in low-carbon innovation.The Carbon Trust's proposals recognise the need for us to be smarter in focusing our investments, including to help businesses seize the economic opportunities of the transition."
  • (14) The US and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when a group of student protesters seized the US embassy in Tehran and took US officials hostage.
  • (15) The militants have also seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, and have declared a self-styled caliphate in the territory they control.
  • (16) But the Tories edited out a crucial final sentence in which Balls told BBC Radio Leeds on 9 January : “But I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will.” Labour seized on the Tory editing of the Balls interview to accuse the Tories of misleading people to defend their refusal to tackle tax avoidance.
  • (17) The Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had given pro-Russian locals in eastern Ukraine until Monday morning to give up their arms and the buildings they had seized, but instead a pro-Russian mob took over yet another government building in Horlivka that day.
  • (18) The terrorists know that if Iraq and Afghanistan survive their assault, come through their travails, seize the opportunity the future offers, then those countries will stand not just as nations liberated from oppression, but as a lesson to humankind everywhere and a profound antidote to the poison of religious extremism.
  • (19) In 2014, they seized on Osborne’s declaration of a “northern powerhouse” to promote One North, a plan for a £15bn network, dubbed HS3, between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
  • (20) The president’s supporters seized on the incident to plant seeds of confusion and false equivalency: if that Russia story was wrong, perhaps all of them are wrong?