Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - decide

(decides, deciding, decided) Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. 1. If you decide to do something, you choose to do it, usually after you have thought carefully about the other possibilities. She decided to do a secretarial course... He has decided that he doesn’t want to embarrass the movement and will therefore step down... The house needed totally rebuilding, so we decided against buying it... I had a cold and couldn’t decide whether to go to work or not... Think about it very carefully before you decide. VERB: V to-inf, V that, V against/in favour of n/-ing, V wh, V 2. If a person or group of people decides something, they choose what something should be like or how a particular problem should be solved. She was still young, he said, and that would be taken into account when deciding her sentence... VERB: V n 3. If an event or fact decides something, it makes it certain that a particular choice will be made or that there will be a particular result. The goal that decided the match came just before the interval... The results will decide if he will win a place at a good university... Luck is certainly one deciding factor. VERB: V n, V wh, V-ing 4. If you decide that something is true, you form that opinion about it after considering the facts. He decided Franklin must be suffering from a bad cold... I couldn’t decide whether he was incredibly brave or just insane. VERB: V that, V wh 5. If something decides you to do something, it is the reason that causes you to choose to do it. The banning of his play decided him to write about censorship... I don’t know what finally decided her, but she agreed. VERB: V n to-inf, V n, also V n that, V n against/in favour of n/-ing