Differentia

//dɪfəˈɹɛnʃɪə// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A distinguishing feature which marks a species off from other members of the same genus.

    "That character, it seems to me, should be regarded as the practically important differentia of religion for our purpose; and just what it is can easily be brought out by comparing the mind of an abstractly conceived Christian with that of a moralist similarly conceived."

  2. 2
    distinguishing characteristics (especially in different species of a genus) wordnet

Example

More examples

"That character, it seems to me, should be regarded as the practically important differentia of religion for our purpose; and just what it is can easily be brought out by comparing the mind of an abstractly conceived Christian with that of a moralist similarly conceived."

Etymology

From Latin differentia. Doublet of difference.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.