English
difference
Etymology

From Middle English difference, from Old French difference, from Latin differentia, from differēns, present participle of differre.

Morphologically differ + -ence.

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈdɪf(ə)ɹəns/
Noun

difference

  1. (uncountable) The quality of being different.
    Antonyms: identity, sameness
    You need to learn to be more tolerant of difference.
  2. (countable) A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.
    There are three differences between these two pictures.
  3. (countable) A disagreement or argument.
    We have our little differences, but we are firm friends.
    • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene v]:
      What was the difference? It was a contention in public.
    • 1714, Thomas Ellwood, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: written by his own hand:
      Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.
  4. (countable, uncountable) Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.
    It just won't make much difference to me.
    It just won't make much of a difference to anyone.
    • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, →OCLC ↗:
      The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces—meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous.
  5. (countable) The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.
    The difference between 3 and 21 is 18.
  6. (obsolete) Choice; preference.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:
      That now be chooseth with vile difference
      To be a beast, and lack intelligence.
  7. (heraldry) An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
  8. (logic) The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
  9. (logic circuits) A Boolean operation which is true when the two input variables are different but is otherwise false; the XOR operation (\scriptstyle A \overline B + \overline A B).
  10. (relational algebra) The set of elements that are in one set but not another (\scriptstyle A \overline B).
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

difference (differences, present participle differencing; simple past and past participle differenced)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To distinguish or differentiate.
    • 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions:
      This simple spectation of the lungs is differenced from that which concomitates a pleurisy.
Synonyms Translations

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