difference

Meanings

Noun

• The quality of being different.
• A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.
• A disagreement or argument.
• Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.
• The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.
• Choice; preference.
• An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
• The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
• A Boolean operation which is TRUE when the two input variables are different but is otherwise FALSE; the XOR operation ($\backslash scriptstyle\; A\; \backslash overline\; B\; +\; \backslash overline\; A\; B$).
• the set of elements that are in one set but not another ($\backslash scriptstyle\; A\; \backslash overline\; B$).

Verb

• To distinguish or differentiate.

Related

Similar words

• departure, deviation, divergence, disparity
• conflict, difference of opinion, dispute, dissension
• remainder
• nevermind
• differentiate, distinguish

Origin

• From Middle English difference, from Old French difference, from Latin differentia, from differēns, present participle of differo. differentia.
• Morphologically differ + -ence.