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Difference vs Reduce - What's the difference?

difference | reduce |

As a noun difference

is difference.

As a verb reduce is

to bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.

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

    reduce

    English

    Verb

  • To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.
  • * to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}
  • To lose weight.
  • To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.
  • * to reduce a sergeant to the ranks
  • * An ancient but reduced family. --.
  • * Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.
  • * Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .
  • * Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.
  • *
  • Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."
  • To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.
  • * to reduce a province or a fort
  • To bring to an inferior state or condition.
  • * to reduce a city to ashes
  • (cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.
  • (chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.
  • (metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.
  • (mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.
  • (legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").
  • * It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.
  • (medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.
  • (military) To reform a line or column from (a square).
  • Synonyms

    * (to bring down) cut, decrease, lower

    Antonyms

    * (to bring down) increase

    See also

    * reducing agent

    References

    * ----