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Distinguishable vs Unique - What's the difference?

distinguishable | unique |

As adjectives the difference between distinguishable and unique

is that distinguishable is able, or easily able to be distinguished while unique is (not comparable) 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.

distinguishable

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Able, or easily able to be distinguished.
    • Black is very distinguishable against a white background

    Antonyms

    * indistinguishable * confusable * mistakable

    Derived terms

    * distinguishability * distinguishableness

    unique

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (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 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—’}}
  • *
  • *
  • 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}}

    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 * singular

    Derived terms

    * uniqueness

    Related terms

    * unicity * one-of-a-kind * inimitable

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A thing without a like; something unequalled or unparallelled.
  • * De Quincey
    • The phoenix, the unique of birds.

    External links

    * * * English autological terms English disputed terms ----