Distinguish vs Unique - What's the difference?
distinguish | unique |
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)
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. ,
(obsolete) To make to differ.
* Bible, 1 Cor. iv. 7 (Douay version)
(not comparable) Being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.
*
*
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
, title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=3 *
*
Of a feature, such that only one holder has it.
Particular, characteristic.
* '>citation
(proscribed) Of a rare quality, unusual.
* {{quote-book, passage=And as I look back, it seems to me that we were fairly unique , the sixty of us, in that there wasn’t one good mixer in the bunch.
, title=For Esmé—With Love and Squalor
, author=J.D. Salinger
, year=1950}}
A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.
* De Quincey
As a verb distinguish
is to see someone or something as different from others.As an adjective unique is
being the only one of its kind; unequaled, unparalleled or unmatched.As a noun unique is
a thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.distinguish
English
Verb
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.}}
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.
- 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, discriminateDerived terms
* distinguished * distinguishable * distinguishnessAntonyms
* (to see someone or something as different from others) confuseExternal links
* *unique
English
Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=‘[…] There's every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that's unique . The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn't that very rare second version of Maria Marten's Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning—he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way—’}}
Usage notes
The comparative and superlative forms more unique'' and ''most unique'', as well as the use of ''unique'' with modifiers as in ''fairly unique'' and ''very unique , are sometimes proscribed, with the reasoning that either something is unique or it is not.Synonyms
(checksyns) * one of a kind * sui generis * singularDerived terms
* uniquenessNoun
(en noun)- The phoenix, the unique of birds.
