difference

plural differences

1. uncountableThe quality of being different.

   You need to learn to be more tolerant of difference.

   Antonyms: identity, sameness

2. countableA characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.

   There are three differences between these two pictures.

   1 more example

   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

   Synonyms: departure, deviation, divergence, disparity

3. countableA disagreement or argument.

   We have our little differences, but we are firm friends.

   2 more examples

   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: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]

   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

   Synonyms: conflict, difference of opinion, dispute, dissension

4. countableuncountableSignificant change in or effect on a situation or state.

   It just won't make much difference to me.

   3 more examples

   It just won't make much of a difference to anyone.

   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

   Synonyms: nevermind

5. countableThe result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.

   The difference between 3 and 21 is 18.

   Synonyms: remainder

6. countableobsoleteuncountableChoice; preference.

   That now be chooseth with vile difference To be a beast, and lack intelligence.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

7. countableuncountablegovernmentAn addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
8. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
9. countableuncountablelogic circuitsA Boolean operation which is true when the two input variables are different but is otherwise false; the XOR operation ( scriptstyle A◌̅B+◌̅AB).
10. countablerelationaluncountablealgebraThe set of elements that are in one set but not another ( scriptstyle A◌̅B).

present singular third person differences · participle present differencing · participle past differenced · past differenced

1. obsoletetransitiveTo distinguish or differentiate.

   This simple spectation of the lungs is differenced from that which concomitates a pleurisy.

   1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions

   2 more examples

   […] and souls, like in the mass, but differenced in themselves, with special gifts, duties and joys […]

   1901 [1839], Philip James Bailey, Festus: A Poem, London: George Routledge & Sons, page 10

   In the Calais Roll the arms of William de Warren […] are differenced by the addition of a canton said to be that of Fitzalan […]

   1904, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopædia of Armory, London: T.C. & E.C. Jack, page 344

   Synonyms: differentiate, distinguish

2. governmentto modify a heraldic emblem so as to distinguish one branch of a house from another