Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Obey

O·bey′, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Obeyed; p. pr. & vb. n. Obeying.] [OE. obeyen, F. obéir, fr. L. obedire, oboedire; ob (see Ob-) + audire to hear. See Audible, and cf. Obeisance.] 1. To give ear to; to execute the commands of; to yield submission to; to comply with the orders of.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Eph. vi. 1.

Was she the God, that her thou didst obey? Milton.

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.

O·bey′, v. i. To give obedience.

Will he obey when one commands? Tennyson.

☞ 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. 16.

He commanded the trumpets to sound: to which the two brave knights obeying, they performed their courses. Sir. P. Sidney.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.