Pursue vs. Chase — What's the Difference?

Follow or chase (someone or something)

Pursue in order to catch or catch up with

Continue or proceed along (a path or route)

Drive or cause to go in a specified direction

To follow in an effort to overtake or capture; chase

Try to obtain (something owed or required)

To strive to gain or accomplish

Engrave (metal, or a design on metal)

To proceed along the course of; follow

An act of pursuing someone or something

To carry further; advance

(in letterpress printing) a metal frame for holding the composed type and blocks being printed at one time.

To take action regarding (something), especially with the intention of sustained effort

The part of a gun enclosing the bore.

To engage in (a vocation or hobby, for example); practice.

A groove or furrow cut in the face of a wall or other surface to receive a pipe or wire.

To try to have a romantic relationship with

To follow rapidly in order to catch or overtake; pursue

To continue to torment or afflict; haunt

To follow (game) in order to capture or kill; hunt

To follow in an effort to overtake or capture; chase.

To seek the favor or company of persistently

To take action regarding something or carry on an established activity or project.

To put to flight; drive

(ambitransitive) To follow urgently, originally with intent to capture or harm; to chase.

To cause (an opposing pitcher) to be removed from a game by batting well.

(transitive) To follow, travel down (a particular way, course of action etc.).

To swing at and miss (a pitch, especially one out of the strike zone).

(transitive) To aim for, go after (a specified objective, situation etc.).

To go or follow in pursuit

(transitive) To participate in (an activity, business etc.); to practise, follow (a profession).

(Informal) To go hurriedly; rush

(intransitive) To act as a legal prosecutor.

To groove; indent.

To follow with a view to overtake; to follow eagerly, or with haste; to chase; as, to pursue a hare.

To cut (the thread of a screw).

To seek; to use or adopt measures to obtain; as, to pursue a remedy at law.

To decorate (metal) by engraving or embossing.

To proceed along, with a view to some and or object; to follow; to go in; as, Captain Cook pursued a new route; the administration pursued a wise course.

The act of chasing; pursuit

To prosecute; to be engaged in; to continue.

The hunting of game

To follow as an example; to imitate.

Something that is hunted or pursued; quarry

To follow with enmity; to persecute; to call to account.

A privately owned, unenclosed game preserve.

To go in pursuit; to follow.

The right to hunt or keep game on the land of others.

To go on; to proceed, especially in argument or discourse; to continue.

A rectangular steel or iron frame into which pages or columns of type are locked for printing or plate making.

To follow a matter judicially, as a complaining party; to act as a prosecutor.

A groove cut in an object; a slot

Carry out or participate in an activity; be involved in;

A trench or channel for drainpipes or wiring.

Follow in or as if in pursuit;

The part of a gun in front of the trunnions.

Go in search of or hunt for;

The cavity of a mold.

Carry further or advance;

The act of one who chases another; a pursuit.

A hunt; the act of hunting; the pursuit of game.

(uncountable) A children's game where one player chases another.

(British) A large country estate where game may be shot or hunted.

Anything being chased, especially a vessel in time of war.

(obsolete) A wild animal that is hunted.

(nautical) Any of the guns that fire directly ahead or astern; either a bow chase or stern chase.

(real tennis) The occurrence of a second bounce by the ball in certain areas of the court, giving the server the chance, later in the game, to "play off" the chase from the receiving end and possibly win the point.

(real tennis) A division of the floor of a gallery, marked by a figure or otherwise; the spot where a ball falls, and between which and the dedans the adversary must drive the ball in order to gain a point.

(cycling) One or more riders who are ahead of the peloton and trying to join the race or stage leaders.

(music) A series of brief improvised jazz solos by a number of musicians taking turns.

(printing) A rectangular steel or iron frame into which pages or columns of type are locked for printing or plate-making.

A groove cut in an object; a slot: the chase for the quarrel on a crossbow.

(architecture) A trench or channel or other encasement structure for encasing (archaically spelled enchasing) drainpipes or wiring; a hollow space in the wall of a building encasing ventilation ducts, chimney flues, wires, cables or plumbing.

The part of a gun in front of the trunnions.

The cavity of a mold.

(shipbuilding) A kind of joint by which an overlap joint is changed to a flush joint by means of a gradually deepening rabbet, as at the ends of clinker-built boats.

(transitive) To pursue.

(transitive) To follow at speed.

(transitive) To hunt.

(transitive) To seek to attain.

(transitive) To seek the company of (a member of the opposite sex) in an obvious way.

To pursue a vessel in order to destroy, capture or interrogate her.

(transitive) To consume another beverage immediately after drinking hard liquor, typically something better tasting or less harsh such as soda or beer; to use a drink as a chaser.

To attempt to win by scoring the required number of runs in the final innings.

To swing at a pitch outside of the strike zone, typically an outside pitch.

To produce enough offense to cause the pitcher to be removed.

(transitive) To groove; indent.

(transitive) To place piping or wiring in a groove encased within a wall or floor, or in a hidden space encased by a wall.

(transitive) To cut (the thread of a screw).

(transitive) To decorate (metal) by engraving or embossing.

To pursue for the purpose of killing or taking, as an enemy, or game; to hunt.

To follow as if to catch; to pursue; to compel to move on; to drive by following; to cause to fly; - often with away or off; as, to chase the hens away.

To pursue eagerly, as hunters pursue game.

To give chase; to hunt; as, to chase around after a doctor.

To ornament (a surface of metal) by embossing, cutting away parts, and the like.

To cut, so as to make a screw thread.

Vehement pursuit for the purpose of killing or capturing, as of an enemy, or game; an earnest seeking after any object greatly desired; the act or habit of hunting; a hunt.

That which is pursued or hunted.

An open hunting ground to which game resorts, and which is private properly, thus differing from a forest, which is not private property, and from a park, which is inclosed. Sometimes written chace.

A division of the floor of a gallery, marked by a figure or otherwise; the spot where a ball falls, and between which and the dedans the adversary must drive his ball in order to gain a point.

A rectangular iron frame in which pages or columns of type are imposed.

The part of a cannon from the reënforce or the trunnions to the swell of the muzzle. See Cannon.

A groove, or channel, as in the face of a wall; a trench, as for the reception of drain tile.

A kind of joint by which an overlap joint is changed to a flush joint, by means of a gradually deepening rabbet, as at the ends of clinker-built boats.

The act of pursuing in an effort to overtake or capture;

Go after with the intent to catch;

Pursue someone sexually or romantically

Cut a groove into;

Cut a furrow into a columns