• Dutch: differentiëren, onderscheiden
• German: differenzieren, unterscheiden
• Hebrew: להבדיל (lehavdyl)
• Persian: فرق گذاشتن, تفكيك كردن
• Swedish: skilja, skilja åt

Difference is the contrary of equality, in particular of objects. Differences can only be stated on the basis of a comparison or categorization. Since a complete comparison of objects or things is seldom possible in practice, only relevant or defining attributes are used for stating equality or difference. Similar objects are only different with respect to attributes of minor discriminative value.

In order for something to be different, you must have something to compare it to.

In particular, difference can refer to:

• In Philosophy, Differance
• In mathematics, difference always means
  • the result of subtraction
    • difference operator
    • finite difference
    • percent difference
  • difference in set theory: see complement and symmetric difference
  • inequality
• Difference in computing: see delta encoding
• Difference on a coat of arms: see heraldry
• Different (song), a song by Acceptance

See also

• Similarity
• Different ideal

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