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Distinguish vs Identity - What's the difference?

distinguish | identity |

As a verb distinguish

is to see someone or something as different from others.

As a noun identity is

sameness, identicalness; the quality or fact of (several specified things) being the same.

distinguish

English

Verb

  • To see someone or something as different from others.
  • * {{quote-book, author=De Lacy O'Leary, title=, year=1922
  • , passage=It had begun to take a leading place even in the days of the Ptolemies, and in scientific, as distinguished from purely literary work, it had assumed a position of primary importance early in the Christian era.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
  • , author=(Jeremy Bernstein) , title=A Palette of Particles , volume=100, issue=2, page=146 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.}}
  • To see someone or something clearly or distinctly.
  • To make oneself noticeably different or better from others through accomplishments.
  • * 1784 : William Jones, The Description and Use of a New Portable Orrery, &c. , PREFACE
  • THE favourable reception the Orrery has met with from Per?ons of the fir?t di?tinction, and from Gentlemen and Ladies in general, has induced me to add to it ?everal new improvements in order to give it a degree of Perfection; and di?tingui?h it from others; which by Piracy, or Imitation, may be introduced to the Public.
  • (obsolete) To make to differ.
  • * Bible, 1 Cor. iv. 7 (Douay version)
  • Who distinguisheth thee?

    Usage notes

    In sense “see a difference”, more casual than differentiate or the formal discriminate; more casual is “tell the difference”.

    Synonyms

    (see a difference) differentiate, discriminate

    Derived terms

    * distinguished * distinguishable * distinguishness

    Antonyms

    * (to see someone or something as different from others) confuse

    identity

    Noun

    (identities)
  • Sameness, identicalness; the quality or fact of (several specified things) being the same.
  • * 1997 , Hydrothermal Vent Fauna'', in ''Advances in Marine Biology: The Biogeography of the Oceans , page 111:
  • The difference or character that marks off an individual from the rest of the same kind, selfhood.
  • *
  • A name or persona—the mask or appearance one presents to the world—by which one is known.
  • This criminal has taken on several identities .
  • Sense of who one is.
  • I've been through so many changes, I have no sense of identity .
    This nation has a strong identity .
  • (algebra, computing) Any function which maps all elements of its domain to themselves.
  • (algebra) An element of an algebraic structure which, when applied to another element under an operation in that structure, yields this, second element.
  • Synonyms

    * selfhood * identity function

    Derived terms

    * additive identity * identity card * identity of indiscernibles * identity theft * law of identity * left identity * mistaken identity * multiplicative identity * personal identity * quasiidentity * right identity