Differentiation

How to spell differentiation

15 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce differentiation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does differentiation mean?

1. nounThe act or process of recognising or expressing the difference between things.
2. nounIn calculus, the process of finding the derivative, or rate of change, of a function.
3. nounIn biology, the process by which unspecialised cells develop into distinct, specialised types.

Differentiation in a sentence

• Clear differentiation between the two product tiers helped customers choose.

• The exam tested differentiation of polynomial and trigonometric functions.

• Stem cell differentiation allows a single cell to become muscle, nerve, or bone.

• The report's differentiation of urgent and routine tasks made the workload manageable.

• She used differentiation to find the slope of the curve at that point.

• The lecture covered the differentiation of tissues during early embryo development.

Where does differentiation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb differre, which literally meant 'to carry apart' or 'to scatter', formed from dis- 'apart' and ferre 'to carry or bear'. From differre came differentia, a noun meaning 'a difference' or 'a distinguishing feature', a term Roman logicians used for the quality that separates one thing from another. English took 'differentiate' in the 1700s and built 'differentiation' on top of it to name the act or process of telling things apart. Mathematicians of the calculus era then borrowed the word for the operation of finding a derivative, and biologists later used it for the way unspecialised cells develop distinct roles. The long spelling is a stack of recognisable pieces, differ + ent + iat + ion, and saying those chunks out loud is the best guard against dropping the tricky middle 'enti' string.

How the word is built

• differ- (from differre: to carry apart, set apart)
• -ent (forming an adjective)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ion (noun of action)