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Detail vs Design - What's the difference?

detail | design |

As nouns the difference between detail and design

is that detail is detail while design is design (creative profession or art).

detail

English

Noun

  • (countable) Something small enough to escape casual notice.
  • (uncountable) A profusion of details.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Timothy Garton Ash)
  • , volume=189, issue=6, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli , passage=Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail , a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.}}
  • Something considered trivial enough to ignore.
  • (countable) A person's name, address and other personal information.
  • (military) A temporary unit or assignment.
  • A part distinct from the whole.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, but could not prove, and would cite as they took to the streets. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.}}
  • A narrative which relates minute points; an account which dwells on particulars.
  • Synonyms

    * (something considered trivial enough to ignore) technicality, trifle, triviality * (personal information) particulars * contingent, detachment

    Derived terms

    * in detail * detail-oriented

    See also

    * overview * bird's-eye view * big picture

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to explain in detail
  • I'll detail the exact procedure to you later.
  • * 2014 , Ian Black, " Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis", The Guardian , 27 November 2014:
  • It is a sunny morning in Amman and the three uniformed judges in Jordan’s state security court are briskly working their way through a pile of slim grey folders on the bench before them. Each details the charges against 25 or so defendants accused of supporting the fighters of the Islamic State (Isis), now rampaging across Syria and Iraq under their sinister black banners and sending nervous jitters across the Arab world.
  • (US (?)) to clean carefully (particularly a car) ()
  • We need to have the minivan detailed .
  • (military) to assign to a particular task
  • Derived terms

    * detailing

    Synonyms

    * (to explain in detail) specify * detach

    Anagrams

    * * English heteronyms ----

    design

    English

    (wikipedia design)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A plan (with more or less detail) for the structure and functions of an artifact, building or system.
  • A pattern, as an element of a work of art or architecture.
  • The composition of a work of art.
  • Intention or plot.
  • * M. Le Page Du Pratz, History of Louisisana (PG), p. 40:
  • I give it you without any other design than to shew you that I reckon nothing dear to me, when I want to do you a pleasure.
  • * '>citation
  • * '>citation
  • The shape or appearance given to an object, especially one that is intended to make it more attractive.
  • * '>citation
  • The art of designing
  • Danish furniture design is world-famous.

    Derived terms

    * architectural design * design by contract * design pattern * hardware design * software design

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete)  To assign, appoint (something to someone); to designate.
  • * 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , I.10:
  • he looks not below the Moon, but hath designed the regiment of sublunary affairs unto inferiour deputations.
  • * Dryden
  • He was designed to the study of the law.
  • To plan and carry out (a picture, work of art, construction etc.).
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
  • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.}}
    Primitive people believe that gods designed the Earth and humans.
  • (obsolete) To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint.
  • * Shakespeare
  • We shall see / Justice design the victor's chivalry.
  • * Beaumont and Fletcher
  • Meet me to-morrow where the master / And this fraternity shall design .

    Anagrams

    * * * ----