difference

noun

1. (uncountable)The quality of being different.

   “You need to learn to be more tolerant of difference.”

2. (countable)A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.

   “There are three differences between these two pictures.”

   “But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

3. (countable)A disagreement or argument.

   “We have our little differences, but we are firm friends.”

   “What was the difference? It was a contention in public.”

   “Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.”

4. (countable, uncountable)Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.

   “It just won't make much difference to me.”

   “It just won't make much of a difference to anyone.”

   “As she did so Fanny put down her book , stood up and stretched her arms, and at once Jessamy noticed a difference. It was the same Fanny but not the Fanny who climbed trees and tore her frock playing in the garden. It was as though a young lady film had settled over her, neatening her unruly hair, which was tied back with a large black bow, and primly composing her small mouth.”

5. (countable)The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.

   “The difference between 3 and 21 is 18.”

6. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)Choice; preference.

   “That now be chooseth with vile difference To be a beast, and lack intelligence.”

7. (countable, uncountable)An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
8. (countable, uncountable)The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
9. (countable, uncountable)A Boolean operation which is true when the two input variables are different but is otherwise false; the XOR operation ( scriptstyle A◌̅B+◌̅AB).
10. (countable, relational, uncountable)The set of elements that are in one set but not another ( scriptstyle A◌̅B).

verb

1. (obsolete, transitive)To distinguish or differentiate.

   “This simple spectation of the lungs is differenced from that which concomitates a pleurisy.”

   “[…] and souls, like in the mass, but differenced in themselves, with special gifts, duties and joys […]”

   “In the Calais Roll the arms of William de Warren […] are differenced by the addition of a canton said to be that of Fitzalan […]”

2. to modify a heraldic emblem so as to distinguish one branch of a house from another