Etymology

différance

Today it means: The endless deferral of any ultimate meaning in a word or sentence, owing to the necessity of recourse to a potentially infinite series of other, equally uncertain words or signs. Full definition →

French différance
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The story

  1. French · borrowed fromdifférance“deferral”
  2. English todaydifférance

From French différance (“deferral”) (coined in this sense by Derrida), from différer (“to defer”); but punning on différence (“difference”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.