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The Collaborative International Dictionary
According

According \Ac*cord"ing\, p. a. Agreeing; in agreement or harmony; harmonious. ``This according voice of national wisdom.''
--Burke. ``Mind and soul according well.''
--Tennyson.

According to him, every person was to be bought.
--Macaulay.

Our zeal should be according to knowledge.
--Sprat.

Note: According to has been called a prepositional phrase, but strictly speaking, according is a participle in the sense of agreeing, acceding, and to alone is the preposition.

According as, precisely as; the same as; corresponding to the way in which. According as is an adverbial phrase, of which the propriety has been doubted; but good usage sanctions it. See According, adv.

Is all things well, According as I gave directions?
--Shak.

The land which the Lord will give you according as he hath promised.
--Ex. xii. 25.

According

Accord \Ac*cord"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Accorded; p. pr. & vb. n. According.] [OE. acorden, accorden, OF. acorder, F. accorder, fr. LL. accordare; L. ad + cor, cordis, heart. Cf. Concord, Discord, and see Heart.]

  1. To make to agree or correspond; to suit one thing to another; to adjust; -- followed by to. [R.]

    Her hands accorded the lute's music to the voice.
    --Sidney.

  2. To bring to an agreement, as persons; to reconcile; to settle, adjust, harmonize, or compose, as things; as, to accord suits or controversies.

    When they were accorded from the fray.
    --Spenser.

    All which particulars, being confessedly knotty and difficult can never be accorded but by a competent stock of critical learning.
    --South.

  3. To grant as suitable or proper; to concede; to award; as, to accord to one due praise. ``According his desire.''
    --Spenser.

According

According \Ac*cord"ing\, adv. Accordingly; correspondingly. [Obs.]
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
according

c.1300, "matching, similar, correponding," present participle adjective and adverb from accord (v.). Meanings "conforming (to), compliant, in agreement; consistent, harmonious; suitable, appropriate" are from late 14c. According to "referring to," literally "in a manner agreeing with" is attested from mid-15c.

Wiktionary
according
  1. agreeing; in agreement or harmony; harmonious. adv. 1 (context obsolete English) accordingly; correspondingly. (16th-17th c.) 2 consistently (term: as); in a corresponding manner (now generally expressing accordance with two or more alternatives). (from 16th c.) 3 In accordance, in a manner consistent (term: to) (something). (from 16th c.) v

  2. (present participle of accord English)

WordNet
according
  1. adj. (followed by `to') as reported or stated by; "according to historians"

  2. (followed by `to') in agreement with or accordant with; "according to instructions"

Usage examples of "according".

Thus attended, the hapless mourner entered the place, and, according to the laudable hospitality of England, which is the only country in Christendom where a stranger is not made welcome to the house of God, this amiable creature, emaciated and enfeebled as she was, must have stood in a common passage during the whole service, had not she been perceived by a humane gentlewoman, who, struck with her beauty and dignified air, and melted with sympathy at the ineffable sorrow which was visible in her countenance, opened the pew in which she sat, and accommodated Monimia and her attendant.

But as was just said, it is one thing to act from freedom in accord with reason, and another thing to act from freedom itself and according to reason itself.

Inasmuch as all uses or truths and goods of charity, which a man renders to the neighbor may be rendered either according to the appearance or according to the verities of the Word, he is in fallacies if he renders them according to the appearances he has confirmed, but renders them as he should if he does so in accord with the verities.

Now it must be observed that every virtue acts in accordance with the time being, as also in keeping with other due circumstances, wherefore the virtue of penance has its act at this time, according to the requirements of the New Law.

Party in America is affiliated, according to the testimony of the Socialists themselves at Albany.

The difficultie and danger he told the Salvaves, of the Mines, great gunnes, and other Engins, exceedingly affrighted them, yet according to his request they went to James towne in as bitter weather as could be of frost and snow, and within three days returned with an answer.

The Isle of Thanet, a secure and fertile district, was allotted for the residence of these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according to the treaty, with a plentiful allowance of clothing and provisions.

Hence it was held that certain Indian allottees under an agreement according to which, in part consideration of their relinquishment of all their claim to tribal property, they were to receive in severalty allotments of lands which were to be nontaxable for a specified period, acquired vested rights of exemption from State taxation which were protected by the Fifth Amendment against abrogation by Congress.

Prepare the eel according to directions previously given, cook in equal parts of white wine and water, seasoning with mace, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, sweet herbs, allspice, and salt.

Even inside the ambulance, the babies, according to the twins at least, had normal heart rates during the transport.

But in regard to the differences both in the internal and external structure of the seeds, which are not always correlated with any differences in the flowers, it seems impossible that they can be in any way advantageous to the plant: yet in the Umbelliferae these differences are of such apparent importance--the seeds being in some cases, according to Tausch, orthospermous in the exterior flowers and coelospermous in the central flowers,--that the elder De Candolle founded his main divisions of the order on analogous differences.

According to the Japanese announcer, nine of the attacking planes were shot down and the rest repulsed by heavy antiaircraft fire.

According to everything we knew to be true about anthrax at the time, it would have been impossible for someone miles away from where the anthrax-laced envelope was opened to have been infected with the disease.

There is an anthrax vaccine, which, according to the CDC, is recommended for people aged eighteen years and older who have a high likelihood of coming into contact with anthrax spores.

According to the ancipital calendar, it was the Air-Turn or Year 353 After Small Apotheosis of Great Year 5,634,000 Since Catastrophe.