What does "obey" mean?
Obey: Was she the God, that her thou didst obey Milton.
Additional senses
- 2.To submit to the authority of; to be ruled by. My will obeyed his will. Chaucer. Afric and India shall his power obey. Dryden.
- 3.To yield to the impulse, power, or operation of; as, a ship obeys her helm.
- 4.To give obedience. Will he obey when one commands Tennyson. Note: By some old writers obey was used, as in the French idiom, with the preposition to. His servants ye are, to whom ye obey. Rom. vi.
- 5.He commanded the trumpets to sound: to which the two brave knights obeying, they performed their courses. Sir. P. Sidney.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00