Etymology

differentiation

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Today it means: The act of treating one thing as distinct from another, or of creating such a distinction; of separating a class of things into categories; of describing a thing by illustrating how it is different from something else. Full definition →

English differentiate ← New Latin differentiātus ← Latin differentia
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*dwóh₁
  2. Proto-Indo-European*trísinflu.
  3. Proto-Indo-European*d(w)is-
  4. Proto-Italic*dis-
  5. Latindis-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*bʰer-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*bʰéreti
  8. Proto-Italic*ferō
  9. Latinferō
  10. Latindifferō
  11. Latindifferēns
  12. Latindifferentia
  13. New Latindifferentiō
  14. New Latindifferentiātus
  15. Englishdifferentiate
  16. English todaydifferentiation

From differentiate + -ion, from different + -iate, from differ + -ent, from Middle English differen, from Old French differer, from Latin differō (“carry apart, put off, defer; differ”), from dis- (“apart”) + ferō (“carry, bear”); cognate with Ancient Greek διαφέρω (diaphérō, “to differ”).

Words from the same roots

Old Frenchdifferer all →

differdefer

Latindifferō all →

differdeferdilate

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.