# differentiation
## English
### Etymology

From differentiate +‎ -ion, from different +‎ -iate, from differ +‎ -ent, from Middle English differen, from Old French differer, from Latin differō (“carry apart, put off, defer; differ”), from dis- (“apart”) + ferō (“carry, bear”); cognate with Ancient Greek διαφέρω (diaphérō, “to differ”).

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /dɪf.əˌɹɛn.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (US) IPA: /ˌdɪf.əˌɹɛn.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/
** Audio (California, ESL); [ˌdɪfˌɹɛn.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən]:(file)
* (General Australian) IPA: /dɪf.əˌɹen.ʃiˈæɪ.ʃən/
* Rhymes: -eɪʃən

### Noun

differentiation (countable and uncountable, plural differentiations)
* The act or process of differentiating (generally, without a specialized sense).
** The act of treating one thing as distinct from another, or of creating such a distinction; of separating a class of things into categories; of describing a thing by illustrating how it is different from something else.
*** 2011, Zukow Walery, Skaliy Aleksander, Napierala Marek, State, prospects and development of rescue, physical culture and sports in the XXI century, →ISBN, page 63:The level of kinesthetic differentiations was established for every individual by using device called kinesthesiometer which allows testing in aquatic environment
** The process of developing distinct components.
* (biology) The process by which the components of multicellular life (cells, organs, etc.) are produced and acquire function, as when a seed develops the root and stem, and the initial stem develops the leaf, branches, and flower buds.
* (biology, evolution) The evolutionary process by which one taxonomic group (species, genus, variety, etc.) becomes distinct from another, or acquires distinct features; the result of such a process: distinctness.
** 2012, Fritz Taylor, The Evolution of Insect Life Cycles‎, page 156:Any hope that the pierines would help to define “the level at which r-K phenomena should be sought has been dashed: apparently species groups (or subgenera, or splitters' genera) are r- or K-selected in the holarctic, whereas in Tatochila the same amount of differentiation is found among populations in a complex in which the process of speciation has not yet been completed.
* (geology) The process of separation of cooling magma into various rock types.
* (mathematics, calculus) The process of applying the derivative operator to a function; of calculating a function's derivative.
** 1878, Edmund Montgomery, “Monera, and the problem of life”, in The Popular Science Monthly‎, volume XIII, page 680:The integration and differentiation of vital function on the one hand, and the preparation and composition of food-material on the other hand form — as we will become fully aware further on — the two great divisions in the subject-matter of the science of organization, divisions corresponding to the fundamental biplicity of all advanced organization, its animal and its vegetative life.

#### Derived terms

* antidifferentiation
* anti-differentiation
* autodifferentiation
* automatic differentiation
* cellular differentiation
* chemodifferentiation
* chondrodifferentiation
* cluster of differentiation
* codifferentiation
* cytodifferentiation
* dedifferentiation
* differentiational
* dysdifferentiation
* enantiodifferentiation
* erythrodifferentiation
* evolutionary differentiation
* histodifferentiation
* indifferentiation
* maldifferentiation
* microdifferentiation
* misdifferentiation
* morphodifferentiation
* multidifferentiation
* myodifferentiation
* neurodifferentiation
* nondifferentiation
* organodifferentiation
* osteodifferentiation
* overdifferentiation
* planetary differentiation
* postdifferentiation
* predifferentiation
* prodifferentiation
* product differentiation
* proto-differentiation
* redifferentiation
* retrodifferentiation
* self-differentiation
* semantic differentiation
* subdifferentiation
* transdifferentiation
* undifferentiation

#### Related terms

* differ
* difference
* different
* differentiate
* differential

#### Translations
### See also

* differentiation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia