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Difference vs Divide - What's the difference?

difference | divide |

As nouns the difference between difference and divide

is that difference is difference while divide is a thing that divides.

As a verb divide is

to split or separate (something) into two or more parts.

difference

English

Noun

  • (uncountable) The quality of being different.
  • (countable) A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty
    • , date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=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.}}
  • (countable) A disagreement or argument.
    • We have our little differences , but we are firm friends.
  • * Shakespeare
    • What was the difference ? It was a contention in public.
  • * T. Ellwood
    • Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.
  • (countable, uncountable) Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.
  • * 1908 , (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows)
    • The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces—meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous.
  • (countable) The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.
  • (obsolete) Choice; preference.
  • * Spenser
    • That now be chooseth with vile difference / To be a beast, and lack intelligence.
  • (heraldry) An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
  • (logic) The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
  • (logic circuits) A Boolean operation which is TRUE when the two input variables are different but is otherwise FALSE; the XOR operation (\scriptstyle A \overline B + \overline A B).
  • (relational algebra) the set of elements that are in one set but not another (\scriptstyle A \overline B).

    • Synonyms

    * (characteristic of something that makes it different from something else) departure, deviation, divergence * (disagreement or argument about something important) conflict, difference of opinion, dispute, dissension * (result of a subtraction) remainder * (significant change in state) nevermind

    Antonyms

    * (quality of being different) identity, sameness

    Derived terms

    * distinction without a difference * creative differences * difference engine * difference equation * difference gate * difference of two squares * goal difference * same difference * split the difference * spot the difference * tell the difference

    See also

    * addition, summation: (augend) + (addend) = (summand) × (summand) = (sum, total) * subtraction: (minuend) ? (subtrahend) = (difference) * multiplication: (multiplier) × (multiplicand) = (factor) × (factor) = (product) * division: (dividend) ÷ (divisor) = (quotient), remainder left over if divisor does not divide dividend

    Verb

    (differenc)
  • To distinguish or differentiate.
    • (en)

    Synonyms

    * (to distinguish or differentiate) differentiate, distinguish

    Related terms

    * differ * different * differentiate * differentiation * differential

    External links

    * * ----

    divide

    English

    Verb

    (divid)
  • To split or separate (something) into two or more parts.
    • a wall divides''' two houses; a stream '''divides the towns
  • * Bible, 1 Kings iii. 25
    • Divide the living child in two.
  • To share (something) by dividing it.
  • * Spenser
    • true justice unto people to divide
  • (arithmetic) To calculate the number (the quotient) by which you must multiply one given number (the divisor) to produce a second given number (the dividend).
  • (arithmetic) To be a divisor of.
  • To separate into two or more parts.
  • (biology) Of a cell, to reproduce by dividing.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.}}
  • To disunite in opinion or interest; to make discordant or hostile; to set at variance.
  • * Bible, Mark iii. 24
    • If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
  • * Prescott
    • Every family became now divided within itself.
  • (obsolete) To break friendship; to fall out.
  • * 1605 , , I. ii. 107:
    • love cools, friendship / falls off, brothers divide .
  • (obsolete) To have a share; to partake.
  • * 1608 , , I. vi. 87:
    • Make good this ostentation, and you shall / Divide in all with us.
  • To vote, as in the British Parliament, by the members separating themselves into two parties (as on opposite sides of the hall or in opposite lobbies), that is, the ayes dividing from the noes.
  • * Gibbon
    • The emperors sat, voted, and divided with their equals.
  • To mark divisions on; to graduate.
    • to divide a sextant
  • (music) To play or sing in a florid style, or with variations.
    • (Spenser)

    Synonyms

    * (split into two or more parts) cut up, disunite, partition, split, split up * (share by dividing) divvy up, divide up, share, share out * (separate into two or more parts) separate, shear, split, split up

    Antonyms

    * (split into two or more parts) combine, merge, unify, unite * (calculate times of multiplication) multiply

    Related terms

    * dividend * division * divisor *

    See also

    * quotient * separate

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A thing that divides.
    • Stay on your side of the divide , please.
  • An act of dividing.
    • The divide left most of the good land on my share of the property.
  • A distancing between two people or things.
    • There is a great divide between us.
  • (geography) A large chasm, gorge, or ravine between two areas of land.
    • If you're heading to the coast, you'll have to cross the divide first.
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