Policy is a plan of action or a set of rules: the principles that a government, a company or a school follows. The word also names an insurance contract: an insurance policy. Politics is something else: elections, parties and the struggle for power.
policy: will you get the meaning right?
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company/government/school + policy; a policy on + topic; it's (company) policy to + verb; take out / renew + an insurance policy; follow politics (elections, parties)
- Our school has a strict policy on mobile phones: they stay in lockers during lessons.
- The government has announced a new housing policy to help young families buy their first home.
- Before the trip, I took out a travel insurance policy that also covers lost luggage.
What changed
First versionAccording to our bank's politics, I can't give you this information over the phone.
RevisionAccording to our bank's policy, I can't give you this information over the phone.
Policy and politics look and sound alike, so it's easy to pick politics when you mean a bank's rules. But politics means elections, parties and arguments about power. The rules that a bank or a shop works by are its policy: bank policy, company policy.
Office politics isn't a company's rules but the scheming and competition for influence among colleagues: I left that job because of the office politics. To say “those are the company's rules”, people say It's company policy.
Your turn
My brother never votes and says ___ is just people arguing on TV.
Show the answer
politics — The brother doesn't vote and is talking about the whole world of elections, parties and arguments on TV. That's politics. Policy is a particular plan or set of rules, such as tax policy, but here the sentence is about politics in general.
Describe one rule at your work or place of study. Name the rule and say whether you agree with it.
Our company has a policy that nobody sends work emails after 7 p.m., and I completely agree with it.
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