difference

noun

1. 1

   The quality of being different.

   You need to learn to be more tolerant of difference.

2. 2

   A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.

   There are three differences between these two pictures.

   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.

3. 3

   A disagreement or argument.

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

   What was the difference? It was a contention in public.

   Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.

4. 4

   Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.

   It just won't make much difference to me.

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

   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.

5. 5

   The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.

   The difference between 3 and 21 is 18.

6. 6

   obsoleteChoice; preference.

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

7. 7

   An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.

8. 8

   The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.

9. 9

   A Boolean operation which is true when the two input variables are different but is otherwise false; the XOR operation ( scriptstyle A◌̅B+◌̅AB).

10. 10

    The set of elements that are in one set but not another ( scriptstyle A◌̅B).

verb

1. 1

   obsoleteTo distinguish or differentiate.

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

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

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

2. 2

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

Forms

plural

differences

past tense

differenced

past participle

differenced

present participle

differencing

third person singular

differences