Distinguish

How to spell distinguish

11 letters · 3 syllables

6 of the 55 people asked to spell distinguish in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

How to pronounce distinguish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distinguish mean?

1. verbTo recognise or point out the difference between two or more things.

Distinguish in a sentence

• A trained ear can distinguish one accent from another.

• Good lighting helps you distinguish the subtle shades of paint.

Where does distinguish come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin distinguere, meaning 'to separate, set apart, or mark off', formed from the prefix dis- ('apart') and stinguere, which originally carried the sense 'to prick' or 'to mark with a point'. The underlying image is of pricking dots or marks to keep things separate, which is how one tells one item from another. English borrowed it in the late 1500s, partly through Old French distinguer, but reshaped the ending on the model of other verbs like 'extinguish' and 'finish', giving the unusual -ish spelling. That same Latin stem also produced 'distinct' and 'distinction', words much closer to the original Latin form. The mismatch between the smooth Latin distinguere and the bumpy English -guish ending is exactly the spelling trap: writers forget the silent-looking 'gu' that sits before the 'ish'.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart)
• stingu- (from Latin stinguere: to prick, mark)
• -ish (verb-forming suffix)