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Affinity vs Preference - What's the difference?

affinity | preference | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between affinity and preference

is that affinity is a natural attraction or feeling of kinship to a person or thing while preference is the selection of one thing or person over others.

As a verb preference is

to give preferential treatment to; to give a preference to.

affinity

English

Noun

(wikipedia affinity) (affinities)
  • A natural attraction or feeling of kinship to a person or thing.
  • A family relationship through marriage of a relative (e.g. sister-in-law), as opposed to consanguinity. (e.g. sister).
  • A kinsman or kinswoman of such relationship. Affinal kinsman or kinswoman.
  • The fact of and manner in which something is related to another.
  • * 1997 , Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault'', page 67, ''The Renaissance Episteme (Totem Books, Icon Books; ISBN 1840460865):
    • A “signature” was placed on all things by God to indicate their affinities' — but it was hidden, hence the search for arcane knowledge. Knowing was '''guessing''' and ' interpreting , not observing or demonstrating.
  • Any romantic relationship.
  • Any passionate love for something.
  • (taxonomy) resemblances between biological populations; resemblances that suggest that they are of a common origin, type or stock.
  • (geology) structural resemblances between minerals; resemblances that suggest that they are of a common origin or type.
  • (chemistry) An attractive force between atoms, or groups of atoms, that contributes towards their forming bonds
  • (medicine) The attraction between an antibody and an antigen
  • (computing) tendency to keep a task running on the same processor in a symmetric multiprocessing operating system to reduce the frequency of cache misses
  • (geometry) An automorphism of affine space.

    • Derived terms

    * affinity card * affinity fraud * affinity reagent * microaffinity

    preference

    English

    (wikipedia preference)

    Alternative forms

    * (archaic)

    Noun

    (Preferans) (en noun)
  • The selection of one thing or person over others.
  • The option to so select, and the one selected.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)
    • , volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet. Perhaps we assume that our name, address and search preferences will be viewed by some unseen pair of corporate eyes, probably not human, and don't mind that much.}}
  • The state of being preferred over others.
  • A strong liking or personal valuation.
  • A preferential bias; partiality; discrimination.
  • Preferans, a card game, principally played in Eastern Europe.

    • Verb

    (preferenc)
  • (US) To give preferential treatment to; to give a preference to.

    • See also

    * preferences ----