Word.ws English Dictionary

different strokes

different strokes noun: different touches. Also the ellipsis of different strokes for different folks.

Noun

different strokes pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Different touches.
  2. (plural, plural-only) Different styles adapted to a specific situation.
    • Different strokes for different folks.

Also used as

different strokes is also the ellipsis of different strokes for different folks.

Origin of different strokes

Appeared in general use by 1970. Possibly originally from the 1968 song “Everyday People” by “Sly & The Family Stone”

Questions about different strokes

What does different strokes mean?
Different strokes means different touches.
What part of speech is different strokes?
Different strokes is a noun.

Words near different strokes in the dictionary

  1. different drummer
  2. different drummers
  3. different ideal
  4. different stories
  5. different story
  6. different strokes
  7. different strokes for different folks
  8. differentation
  9. differentia
  10. differentiabilities
  11. differentiability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: different strokes (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “different strokes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/different_strokes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.