different

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See also différent, and diffèrent

Contents

English [edit]

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Etymology [edit]

From Middle English, from Latin differēns, present active participle of differō (“I differ”); see differ.

Pronunciation [edit]

  • IPA: /ˈdɪf.əɹ.ənt/, /ˈdɪf.ɹənt/, X-SAMPA: /"dIf.@(r).@nt/, /"dIf.r@nt/
  • Audio (US)
    		(file)
  • Hyphenation: dif‧fer‧ent

Adjective [edit]

different (comparative more different, superlative most different)

  1. Not the same; exhibiting a difference
    • 1971, William S. Burroughs, The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead, page 6
      Enter the American tourist. He thinks of himself as a good guy but when he looks in the mirror to shave this good guy he has to admit that "well, other people are different from me and I don't really like them." This makes him feel guilty toward other people.
    • 1886, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge:
      At Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity from any she had seen in him before.
  2. Various, assorted, diverse.
    • 2006, Delbert S. Elliott et al., Good Kids from Bad Neighborhoods: Successful Development in Social Context,[1] Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521863575, page 19:
      In any case, poor black respondents living in high-poverty neighborhoods are most likely to view their neighborhood as a single block or block group and to use this definition consistently when asked about different neighborhood characteristics and activities.
  3. Distinct, separate; used for emphasis after numbers and other determiners of quantity.
    Several different scientists all reached this conclusion at about the same time.
  4. Unlike most others; unusual.

Usage notes [edit]

  • (not the same): Depending on dialect, time period, and register, the adjective different (“not the same”) may be construed with one of the prepositions from, to, and than, or with the subordinating conjunction than.
    Pleasure is different from/than/to happiness.
    It's different than (or from what) I expected.
    Of these, from is more common in formal registers than in informal ones, and more common in the US than elsewhere; than is more common in the US than elsewhere; and to is more common in the UK, in Australia, and in New Zealand than in the US  Style guides often advocate different from, by analogy with differ from rather than *differ than or *differ to, and proscribe different than and different to.

Synonyms [edit]

Antonyms [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

Related terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

not the same
unlike most others
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun [edit]

different (plural differents)

  1. (mathematics) The different ideal.

External links [edit]

Statistics [edit]

Latin [edit]

Verb [edit]

different

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of differō
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