difference

1. (uncountable) The quality of being different.Examples: "You need to learn to be more tolerant of difference."Antonyms: identity, samenessuncountable

2. (countable) A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.Examples: "There are three differences between these two pictures."; "But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short."Synonyms: departure, deviation, divergence, disparitycountable

3. (countable) A disagreement or argument.Examples: "We have our little differences, but we are firm friends."; "What was the difference? It was a contention in public."; "Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could."Synonyms: conflict, difference of opinion, dispute, dissensioncountable

4. (countable, uncountable) Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.Examples: "It just won't make much difference to me."; "It just won't make much of a difference to anyone."; "The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces—meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous."Synonyms: nevermindcountableuncountable

5. (countable) The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.Examples: "The difference between 3 and 21 is 18."Synonyms: remaindercountable

6. (obsolete) Choice; preference.Examples: "That now be chooseth with vile difference To be a beast, and lack intelligence."countableobsoleteuncountable