disparate

What it means

1. Composed of inherently different or distinct elements; incongruous.

   The board of the company was decidedly disparate, with no two members from the same social or economic background.

   2 more examples

   The London Transport Museum was established, from disparate collections, at Covent Garden in 1980.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 269

   Although third-rail operation in the region dates back more than a century, it was in the 1970s that tunnels under Liverpool's city centre opened to bring together previously disparate routes.

   2023 February 8, Tony Streeter, “Kirkdale: home to Merseyrail's new '777s'”, in RAIL, number 976, page 36

   Synonyms: incongruous, mismatched, uncoordinated

2. Essentially different; of different species, unlike but not opposed in pairs.

   Synonyms: different, dissimilar, unalike

3. Utterly unlike; incapable of being compared; having no common ground.

   Then disparate sense impressions come to disparate organs, as light to the eye, taste to the mouth, etc.

   1898, John Wesley Powell, Truth and Error

   1 more example

   M. Bergson’s philosophy, unlike most of the systems of the past, is dualistic: the world, for him, is divided into two disparate portions, on the one hand life, on the other matter, or rather that inert something which the intellect views as matter.

   1912, Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Bergson

   Synonyms: incommensurable

In a sentence

The board of the company was decidedly disparate, with no two members from the same social or economic background.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*dwóh₁
2. Proto-Indo-European*trísinflu.
3. Proto-Indo-European*d(w)is-
4. Proto-Italic*dis-
5. Latindis-
6. Latinparō
7. Latindisparō
8. Latindisparātus
9. Middle Frenchdesparat
10. Latindisparātus
11. Englishdisparate

First attested in 1586; either borrowed from Middle French desparat or directly from Latin disparātus, perfect passive participle of disparō (“to divide”) (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix)), from dis- (“apart”) + parō (“to arrange”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ (“two”) and the root *per- (“carry forth”).