Synonyms for distinguish
Most common
All synonyms
Verb
1. Differentiate — to recognize someone or something as different from others based on its characteristics
differentiate, discern, tell, recognize UK US, recognise UK, tell apart, identify, separate, discriminate, characterize, characterise UK, difference, describe, perceive, see, discover, designate, know, set apart, mark out, divide, name, key out, judge
Other
mark, glorify, contradistinguish, distinctify, dislexify, signalize dated UK US, signalise UK
Definitions
- v. 1
To recognize someone or something as different from others based on its characteristics.
Related words
Forms
- Past participle
- distinguished
e.g. distinguished → differentiated, discerned, teld, recognized…
Choose the right word
What we discern we see apart from all other objects; what we discriminate we judge apart; what we distinguish we mark apart, or recognize by some special mark or manifest difference.
J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)
Example sentences
- identify They were able to identify him by his wrist watch.
- differentiate We differentiate between living and dead objects.
- discern It is hard to discern between the true and the false.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| distinguish | steady | |
| identify | rising | |
| differentiate | rising | |
| discern | rising | |
| contradistinguish | steady |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 3 letters
- see1
- 4 letters
- know1, name1, tell1, mark1
- 5 letters
- judge1
- 6 letters
- divide2
- 7 letters
- discern2, glorify3
- 8 letters
- separate3, identify4, describe2, discover3, perceive2
- 9 letters
- recognize3, recognise3, designate3, signalize, dislexify, signalise
- 10 letters
- difference3
- 11 letters
- distinctify
- 12 letters
- discriminate4, characterize4, characterise
- 13 letters
- differentiate5
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (divide2 = 2 syllables).
In other languages
- Français
- distinguer
- Español
- distinguir
- Català
- distingir