differentiation
Meanings
- The act or process of differentiating (generally, without a specialized sense).
- The act of treating one thing as distinct from another, or of creating such a distinction; of separating a class of things into categories; of describing a thing by illustrating how it is different from something else.
- The process of developing distinct components.
- The process by which the components of multicellular life (cells, organs, etc.) are produced and acquire function, as when a seed develops the root and stem, and the initial stem develops the leaf, branches, and flower buds.
- The evolutionary process by which one taxonomic group (species, genus, variety, etc.) becomes distinct from another, or acquires distinct features; the result of such a process: distinctness.
- The process of separation of cooling magma into various rock types.
- The process of applying the derivative operator to a function; of calculating a function's derivative.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- Proto-Indo-European *bʰéreti Proto-Italic *ferō Latin ferō Latin differō Latin differēns Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ia Latin differentia New Latin differentiō New Latin differentiātusbor. English differentiate Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin -ātiōlbor. Old French -ationbor. Middle English -acioun English -ation English -ion English differentiation From differentiate + -ion, from different + -iate, from differ + -ent, from Middle English differen, from Old French differer, from Latin differō (“carry apart, put off, defer; differ”), from dis- (“apart”) + ferō (“carry, bear”); cognate with Ancient Greek διαφέρω (diaphérō, “to differ”).