distinguishing

English

Verb

distinguishing

1. present participle and gerund of distinguish

Adjective

distinguishing (comparative more distinguishing, superlative most distinguishing)

1. That serves to distinguish.
   • 1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 118:

     It has no obvious distinguishing characteristics, and therefore people are constantly ascribing to it the characteristics of other similar species.

   • 2022, American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

     The distinguishing feature of an acronym is that it is pronounced as if it were a single word, in the manner of NATO and NASA.

Derived terms

• distinguishingly
• distinguishing penant
• indistinguishing
• nondistinguishing
• undistinguishing

 

Collocations

Collocations

• distinguishing feature
• distinguishing characteristic
• distinguishing mark
• distinguishing factor
• distinguishing trait
• distinguishing quality
• distinguishing character
• distinguishing number

Translations

that serves to distinguish — see also distinctive

• Czech: rozlišující
• Finnish: tunnusomainen (fi)
• French: distinctif (fr)
• German: unterscheidend (de)
• Hungarian: megkülönböztető (hu), ismertető (hu)
• Polish: wyróżniający, odróżniający

Noun

distinguishing (plural distinguishings)

1. The act by which something is distinguished or told apart.
   • 2012, R. R. Cox, Schutz’s Theory of Relevance: A Phenomenological Critique, page 49:

     There are not only these identifyings going on, but also there are distinguishings. For just as in the example above there are identifications of the various extents, there are distinguishings of these extents.

Further reading

• “distinguishing”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “distinguishing” in Moby Thesaurus II, Grady Ward, 1996.
• distinguishing feature, distinguishing characteristic, distinguishing mark at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• distinguishing features, distinguishing characteristics, distinguishing marks at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.