difference
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
10 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "difference", 10-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "difference" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "difference" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
difference is aEnglishnoun. It means: The quality of being different. Pronounced /ˈdɪf(ə)ɹəns/. It ranks #1,048 in English word frequency. Often confused with different and differences.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | difference |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdɪf(ə)ɹəns/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #1,048 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for difference is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɪf(ə)ɹəns/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,048 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for difference, with forms such as "ddifference", "dfiference", and "difefrence". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "different", "differences", "deference", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English difference, from Old French difference, from Latin differentia (“difference”), from differēns (“different”), present participle of differre. Doublet of differentia. Morphologically differ + -ence. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is difference, spelled D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The quality of being different.
- 2A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.
- 3A disagreement or argument.
- 4Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.
- 5The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.
- 6Choice; preference.
- 7An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
- 8The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
- 9A Boolean operation which is true when the two input variables are different but is otherwise false; the XOR operation ( scriptstyle A◌̅B+◌̅AB).
- 10The set of elements that are in one set but not another ( scriptstyle A◌̅B).
Etymology
From Middle English difference, from Old French difference, from Latin differentia (“difference”), from differēns (“different”), present participle of differre. Doublet of differentia. Morphologically differ + -ence.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddifference,dfiference,difefrence,diference,diffeernce,differance,differecne,differencce,differenec,differennce,differnece,differrence,diffreence,idfference
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for difference
Misspelling Variants of "difference"
Frequency rank: #1,048 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "difference"?
What does "difference" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "difference"?
How do you pronounce "difference"?
What is the origin of the word "difference"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: