On this page12 sections
- Synonyms for determine at a glance
- Determine as "find out": establish, ascertain, work out
- Determine as "decide": settle, resolve, fix
- Determine as "control the result": shape, govern, dictate
- Determine a value: calculate, measure, work out
- In law and official decisions: rule, find, adjudicate
- "She determined to leave": resolve, make up your mind
- Determined on a resume
- Words to be careful with
- Opposites of determine
- Practice: choose the better word
- Quick answers
The best other word for determine depends on which of its jobs it is doing. When it means to discover a fact, use find out, establish, work out or ascertain. When it means to make a choice, use decide or settle. When one thing controls another, as in demand determines price, use shape, govern, dictate or decide.
Determine is a favourite of reports, essays and lab write-ups because it sounds exact. Often a shorter word says the same thing and reads more easily. Sometimes, though, the plain word is too weak: a court does more than decide when it determines liability. The sections below take the meanings one at a time, so you can match the synonym to the sentence you are writing.
Synonyms for determine at a glance
| Determine means… | Plain words | Formal words | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| discover a fact | find out, work out, figure out, learn | establish, ascertain, identify, verify | Police are trying to establish how the fire started. |
| make a choice | decide, settle, choose, pick, fix | resolve, conclude, set | The board will decide the date next week. |
| control how something turns out | decide, shape, drive, affect | govern, dictate, influence, condition | Rainfall dictates the size of the harvest. |
| get a number or amount | work out, measure, count | calculate, compute, quantify, gauge | Use the scale to measure the weight of each sample. |
| give an official ruling | decide, find | rule, adjudicate, hold | The tribunal ruled that the dismissal was unfair. |
| make up your mind to do something | decide, make up your mind | resolve | She resolved to finish the course. |
Determine as “find out”: establish, ascertain, work out
This is the sense that fills research papers and incident reports: there is a fact, and someone has to discover it. The synonyms differ in how much effort and certainty they suggest.
- find out: the everyday choice, right for almost any sentence outside a formal report. We need to find out why sales dropped in March.
- work out and figure out: reach the answer by thinking it through. Work out is more British, figure out more American. It took the engineers a week to work out where the leak was.
- establish: show that something is true, with evidence. The inquiry established that the alarm had been switched off.
- ascertain: find out for certain. It is very formal and best kept for legal and official writing. The officer attempted to ascertain the driver’s identity.
- identify: find out which person or thing is the one you are looking for. The team identified three causes of the delay.
- verify and confirm: check that something you already believe is true. Please verify your address before you submit the form.
- pinpoint: find the exact place, time or cause. Doctors could not pinpoint the source of the infection.
- discover and learn: come to know something, sometimes by chance. She later discovered that the letter had never been sent.
A useful check: establish and ascertain promise certainty, while find out and work out promise only an answer. If your evidence is thin, the plainer verb is also the more honest one.
“To determine whether” in essays and reports
The phrase the aim of this study is to determine whether is correct, and common. If you have used it three times on one page, vary it by the kind of work you did:
| Instead of “to determine whether…” | Fits when you… |
|---|---|
| to find out whether | are writing for general readers |
| to test whether | ran an experiment with a hypothesis |
| to examine whether, to investigate whether | looked into a question without a single yes-or-no test |
| to establish whether | expect the evidence to settle the question |
| to assess whether, to evaluate whether | judged something against criteria |
| to check whether | confirmed something simple |
Determine as “decide”: settle, resolve, fix
Here a person or a group makes a choice. Decide is nearly always the better word; determine in this sense sounds like a rulebook.
- decide: The committee will decide who receives the grant.
- settle: decide something finally, often after discussion or argument. They settled the question with a vote.
- choose, pick, select: decide between options. Each student chooses a topic for the project.
- set and fix: decide a date, price or limit. The bank sets the interest rate. We have fixed the wedding for 12 June.
- resolve: decide firmly, or end a dispute. The two sides resolved their differences.
- conclude: decide after looking at the facts. The report concluded that the bridge was safe.
- agree on: when the choice is shared. We still have to agree on a budget.
Determine as “control the result”: shape, govern, dictate
In this sense nobody chooses anything. One thing causes or limits another: your genes determine your eye colour. The synonyms run from strong to weak, and the difference matters, because swapping a strong verb for a weak one changes the claim.
- decide: full control, plain style. One goal decided the match.
- dictate: full control, with a sense of no choice. The budget dictates what we can build.
- govern: control according to rules or laws. The laws that govern the motion of the planets.
- drive: be the main force behind something. Consumer spending drives growth.
- shape: have a strong but not total effect. Her childhood shaped her view of money.
- influence and affect: have some effect, with no claim about how much. Weather affects turnout. See another word for influence for that group.
- depend on: turn the sentence around. The price depends on demand says the same as demand determines the price.
If the original says X determines Y, then X influences Y is a smaller claim, not a synonym. Keep decides, dictates or governs when the control is complete.
Determine a value: calculate, measure, work out
Science and maths questions use determine to mean “get the number”. Name the method and the sentence becomes clearer.
- calculate and compute: get the number from other numbers. Calculate the area of the triangle.
- work out: the plain version. Work out how much paint you need.
- measure: get it with an instrument. Measure the temperature every ten minutes.
- count: when the answer is a whole number of things.
- estimate: get an approximate figure. It is the right word only when the result is rough.
- gauge and assess: judge a size or level, often without exact measurement. It is hard to gauge the mood of the crowd.
- quantify: express something as a number. The damage is difficult to quantify.
In law and official decisions: rule, find, adjudicate
Courts and tribunals determine cases, and here the word has a technical edge: the decision is binding. The usual alternatives are rule (the judge ruled that the evidence could be used), find (the jury found him not guilty), hold (the court held that the contract was void), decide and adjudicate, which means to act as the judge of a dispute. In a legal document, leave determine alone unless you know the replacement carries the same force. In a news report or a summary for ordinary readers, ruled or decided is clearer.
“She determined to leave”: resolve, make up your mind
Determine to do something means to decide firmly. It is rare in modern speech and reads as old-fashioned. Use decide, resolve, make up your mind or set your heart on: He made up his mind to learn to swim before the summer.
The adjective is far more common than the verb. For determined meaning “not willing to give up”, try resolute, persistent, tenacious, dogged, single-minded, driven or unwavering. Stubborn and obstinate describe the same quality with disapproval. For determined to win, you can write set on winning, intent on winning or bent on winning. For images of the quality itself, see metaphors for determination and similes for determination.
Determined on a resume
“Determined the cause of customer complaints” tells a reader that you found something, but not how. Choose the verb that names the work:
- identified: you spotted it. Identified the three products behind most customer returns.
- diagnosed: you found the cause of a fault.
- analysed or assessed: you studied data or options.
- calculated or forecast: you produced numbers.
- set or defined: you decided priorities, prices or requirements.
Keep determined for the adjective, and even there, show it with a result. A finished project says more than the word.
Words to be careful with
| Word | Why it is not a straight swap |
|---|---|
| estimate | Gives an approximate answer. Determine promises an exact one. |
| guess, assume, suppose | No evidence is involved. These are the opposite of finding out. |
| influence, affect | Partial effect only. Diet influences health is weaker than diet determines health. |
| define | States what a word or limit is. You define a term; you determine a cause. |
| predict | Says what will happen before it does. Determining comes after the evidence. |
| ensure | Makes certain that something happens; it does not discover anything. See another word for ensure. |
| deter, terminate | Look-alikes with other meanings: deter is to discourage, terminate is to end. Determine and terminate do share a root, the Latin terminus, a boundary: to determine something was originally to set its limits. |
Opposites of determine
For the finding-out sense: guess, overlook, miss, leave open. For the deciding sense: hesitate, waver, put off, leave undecided. Something not yet determined is undetermined, unknown, unresolved or up in the air.
Practice: choose the better word
- Investigators are still trying to (establish / dictate) the cause of the crash.
- The size of the room will (ascertain / dictate) how many guests we can invite.
- (Calculate / Resolve) the total cost, including tax.
- The judge (ruled / measured) that the search was unlawful.
- We don’t have exact figures, so we can only (verify / estimate) the number of visitors.
- Have you (decided / pinpointed) where to go on holiday?
- The technician (pinpointed / governed) the fault in under an hour.
- After the third failure she (resolved / quantified) to try a different method.
Answers: 1 establish; 2 dictate; 3 calculate; 4 ruled; 5 estimate; 6 decided; 7 pinpointed; 8 resolved.
Quick answers
What is a simple word for determine?
Find out when a fact is being discovered, and decide when a choice is being made. Between them they replace most uses of determine.
What is a formal synonym for determine?
Establish and ascertain for facts, resolve and conclude for decisions, govern and dictate for control. Determine is itself formal, so a change is usually for variety, not polish.
Is ascertain the same as determine?
Only in the finding-out sense. You can ascertain a fact, but you cannot ascertain a price that you are setting yourself or an outcome that something else controls.
What is the difference between decide and determine?
Decide is about choosing. Determine can mean choosing, but more often means finding out or controlling. We decided to test the water is a choice; we determined that the water was safe is a finding.
What is another word for determination?
For the quality: resolve, persistence, tenacity, grit, willpower, drive. For an official decision: ruling, finding, decision.
For more overused words and their replacements, browse the list of synonyms.