qualify

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɑl.ɪ.faɪ/, enPR: kwŏlʹĭ-fī
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɒl.ɪ.faɪ/, enPR: kwŏlʹĭ-fī
• Hyphenation: qual‧i‧fy

• Audio (US)

  (file)

qualify (third-person singular simple present qualifies, present participle qualifying, simple past and past participle qualified)

1. To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities.
2. To make someone, or to become competent or eligible for some position or task.
   • Macaulay

     He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession.

3. To certify or license someone for something.
4. To modify, limit, restrict or moderate something; especially to add conditions or requirements for an assertion to be true.
   • 1598, Shakespeare, Sonnet 109

     O! never say that I was false of heart,

     Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify

5. (now rare) To mitigate, alleviate (something); to make less disagreeable.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vi:

     he balmes and herbes thereto applyde, / And euermore with mighty spels them charmd, / That in short space he has them qualifyde, / And him restor'd to health, that would haue algates dyde.

6. To compete successfully in some stage of a competition and become eligible for the next stage.
7. To give individual quality to; to modulate; to vary; to regulate.
   • Sir Thomas Browne

     It hath no larynx […] to qualify the sound.

8. (juggling) To throw and catch each object at least twice.

   • to qualify seven balls you need at least fourteen catches

• unqualify

• disqualify
• qualification
• qualifier

qualify

1. (juggling) An instance of throwing and catching each prop at least twice.