Distinguishing

How to spell distinguishing

14 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce distinguishing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distinguishing mean?

1. adjectiveServing to identify something or someone by setting it apart from others.
2. verbIn the act of recognising or marking the difference between things.

Distinguishing in a sentence

• adjective

  The bird's bright red crest is its most distinguishing feature.

• verb

  She had trouble distinguishing the twins until she learned their voices.

• adjective

  The report listed the distinguishing marks on the stolen vehicle.

• verb

  The software is good at distinguishing spam from genuine messages.

Where does distinguishing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb distinguere, which meant 'to separate, to mark off, to set apart', built from dis- meaning 'apart' and the root stinguere meaning 'to prick' or 'to mark with a point'. The underlying image is of literally pricking out boundaries to tell one thing from another. The word reached English in the late 1500s, partly through Old French distinguer, and English remodelled it with the -ish ending that already capped many borrowed verbs such as 'finish' and 'punish'. The form 'distinguishing' is simply the present participle of that verb, and it commonly works as an adjective for the features that set something apart. The tricky spelling comes from the silent-looking 'gu' cluster, where the u rides along after the g; remembering the Latin stinguere helps fix that 'ngui' sequence in place.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart)
• -stingu- (from Latin stinguere: to separate, prick)
• -ish (verb-forming)
• -ing (present participle)