difference

CEFRA1

/ˈdɪf(ə)ɹəns/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
The way in which two things are not the same.
02
noun
Extra detail
A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.

Examples

Do they even know the difference between good and evil?
I hope you have brains enough to see the difference.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

A disagreement or argument.
The quality of being different.
The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.

More examples

In context

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
There are three differences between these two pictures.
We have our little differences, but we are firm friends.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Can you see a clear blank between the two identical-looking twins?

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

What was the difference? It was a contention in public.
1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London:...
But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.
2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11
Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.
1714, Thomas Ellwood, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: written by his own hand
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.
1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC
As she did so Fanny put down her book , stood up and stretched her arms, and at once Jessamy noticed a difference. It was the same Fanny but not the Fanny who climbed trees and tore her frock playing in the garden. It was as though a young lady film had settled over her, neatening her unruly hair, which was tied back with a large black bow, and primly composing her small mouth.
1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 105

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Origin

noun

From Middle English difference, from Old French difference, from Latin differentia (“difference”), from differēns (“different”), present participle of differre. Doublet of differentia. Morphologically differ + -ence.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

Can you see a clear blank— between the two identical-looking twins?

Nearby

Origin

noun

Can you see a clear blank between the two identical-looking twins?