Word of the Day:
distinguish
What It Means
To recognize someone or something as different from others based on its characteristics.
To see someone or something clearly or distinctly.
To make noticeably different or better from others through accomplishments.
The soldier distinguished himself in combat and received a medal.
Distinguish in Context
“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.”
Did You Know?
From Middle English distingwen, from Old French distinguer, from Latin distinguere (“to separate, divide, distinguish, set off, adorn, literally mark off”), from di-, dis- (“apart”) + stinguere, related to English stink. Compare extinguish.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: distinguish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “distinguish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/distinguish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
