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”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪf.əˌɹɛn.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌdɪf.əˌɹɛn.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/

  • Audio (California, ESL); :

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /dɪf.əˌɹen.ʃiˈæɪ.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

differentiation (countable and uncountable, plural differentiations)

1. The act or process of differentiating (generally, without a specialized sense).
   1. 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.
      • 2011, Zukow Walery, Skaliy Aleksander, Napierala Marek, State, prospects and development of rescue, physical culture and sports in the XXI century, →ISBN, page 63:

        The level of kinesthetic differentiations was established for every individual by using device called kinesthesiometer which allows testing in aquatic environment

   2. The process of developing distinct components.
2. (biology) 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.
3. (biology, evolution) 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.
   • 2012, Fritz Taylor, The Evolution of Insect Life Cycles‎, page 156:

     Any hope that the pierines would help to define “the level at which r-K phenomena should be sought has been dashed: apparently species groups (or subgenera, or splitters' genera) are r- or K-selected in the holarctic, whereas in Tatochila the same amount of differentiation is found among populations in a complex in which the process of speciation has not yet been completed.

4. (geology) The process of separation of cooling magma into various rock types.
5. (mathematics, calculus) The process of applying the derivative operator to a function; of calculating a function's derivative.
   • 1878, Edmund Montgomery, “Monera, and the problem of life”, in The Popular Science Monthly‎, volume XIII, page 680:

     The integration and differentiation of vital function on the one hand, and the preparation and composition of food-material on the other hand form — as we will become fully aware further on — the two great divisions in the subject-matter of the science of organization, divisions corresponding to the fundamental biplicity of all advanced organization, its animal and its vegetative life.

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• differential

• differentiation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia