The word ‘Council’ and ‘Counsel’ are often confused or interchanged by people. However, it is important to understand that the two words might be similar in pronunciation, but they are very different in meaning. Miscommunication can occur if people interchange these while interacting, and the scenario can lead to big confusion too.
Council vs Counsel
The main difference between council and counsel is that “council” is a noun and “counsel” is not a noun. It basically means a group of people who are consulting upon something or some issue. To put it in simpler words, it is a committee that makes decisions or gives advice. Counsel is used as both a verb or a noun, depending on the context of the sentence.
Counsel indicates the action of advising someone over something. When used in a sentence, it means the action of advising or guiding someone, helping them pave the right path for themselves.
To give someone their opinion on social or personal problems also, this word is commonly used.
Comparison Table Between Council and Counsel (in Tabular Form)
| Parameter of Comparison | Council | Counsel |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Council is a group of people come together for any particular task, like giving advice or consulting. | Counsel means to show someone a path where to head; it is the advice given. |
| Similar | An advisory body, Consulting panel. | Opinion, instruction, advice. |
| Part of speech | Noun | Verb and noun |
| No. of persons included | More than one | One or can be more than one. |
| Examples | I need a council to select my college. | I counsel him about psychology. |
| Ram asked to meet a council to discuss his ideas about our new project. | The government has started to give counsel to our business. |
What is Council?
Council is a panel of persons who give advice. It can also be referred to as a committee that discusses, recommends, and gives counsel to a particular person or company.
Nowadays, there are various different councils, such as the student council, state council, bank council, etc.
To put it in simpler words, the purpose of any council is to address the problems and give a direction to the right path.
For example, if there is a student council, it will give advice on the best college suitable for the student.
On the other hand, if it is a business council, then it will provide advice to any problem which the company is facing and taking the company’s stakes high.
There
are a lot of legal councils too, and their function is to consult the public
and solve their problems by deliberating them.
Some of the councils present are:
Municipal council- It works as a local government.
Labor council- It works for the laborers providing them a solution on how to make
their work more effective economically, productively, etc.
National security council- It gives instructions on how to deal with the enemies and friends
of our nation.
Town council- The work of this type of council is to make sure that the town is
clean, getting proper water facilities, electricity, etc.
Examples :
- Shreya needs a council to opt for her carrier.
- The state council isn’t working properly for the past few months.
The council meeting for my house is tonight.
What is Counsel?
‘Counsel’ word is the word for advice or to give an opinion. It is also referred to as legal advice.
VHGAs per the bible, it signifies ‘the action plan of something.’ To have a counsel implies to get a way to go forward with something that you are confused about with the help from someone.
This title is often used in the replacement of the lawyer. This is because a lawyer also gives advice in any legal action.
The counsel word is associated with the helping of others to conclude any solution or to helping someone with your opinion or advisory.
We
can understand its meaning better with some examples :
- The counsel which he gave to me regarding my house worked.
- I don’t agree with the counsel of my cousin about psychology.
- He asked me for some counsel In finding the right land.
Main Differences Between Council and Counsel
- Council is a group of people consulting upon something in the manner of giving advice for something while the counsel is the advice given.
- The council can only be used as a noun, whereas the counsel can be used as a verb as well as a noun.
- Both of their origins are from a Latin word and in the early 1600s. Both of the words are used as interchangeable. However, it was eventually concluded that council word would be for a group of people to advise.
- It is known that the council is just for the advice relatable, but counsel can be related to the opinions given, instructions, etc. as well.
Conclusion
It is a fact that the council and counsel will always cross each other’s roads.
However, we can still have a modern solution to this prolonged problem, which is that the end of the council is ‘sel,’ which is like the word ‘sell” which is also a verb.
That is how one can memorize the difference and can be more correct with our grammar.
Both the words counsel and council are homophones. This means they have the same pronunciation but have different spelling and different specifications too.
After
seeing every match and mismatch about these two words, one can probably keep a
particular sentence in mind to never confuse the two words again.
Here’s an example: Leela needs a council for her family for some counsel about the
legal papers.
Here
are a few more sentences to make you understand the difference between the
words council and counsel :
- I went to a council without taking any counsel from my family.
- I asked the principal to give me some counsel about the future scope of science.
References
- https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1111/j.1475-6757.2003.00029.x
- https://library.seg.org/doi/abs/10.1190/tle36040288.1