different between chance vs difference

English

Alternative forms

• chaunce (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?æns/
  • (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [t????ns], [t??e?ns]
  • (Northern England, General Australian, Ireland) IPA^(key): [t??æns], [t??ans]
• IPA^(key): /t???ns/
  • (Received Pronunciation, Cockney) IPA^(key): [t????ns]
  • (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): [t????ns]
• Rhymes: -??ns, -æns

Etymology 1

From Middle English chance, cheance, chaunce, cheaunce, a borrowing from Old French chance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cadere (“to fall, to die, to happen, occur”). Doublet of cadence and cadenza.

Noun

chance (countable and uncountable, plural chances)

1. (countable) An opportunity or possibility.

2. (uncountable) Random occurrence; luck.

3. (countable) The probability of something happening.

4. (countable, archaic) What befalls or happens to a person; their lot or fate.

Synonyms

• (random occurrence): fortune, hap; see also Thesaurus:luck

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

chance (not comparable)

1. Happening by chance, casual.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, ch. VI, The Shoe Maker (Heron Book Centennial Edition)

     No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there.

Translations

Adverb

chance (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Perchance; perhaps.

Etymology 2

From Middle English chancen, chauncen, from the noun (see above).

Verb

chance (third-person singular simple present chances, present participle chancing, simple past and past participle chanced)

1. (archaic, intransitive) To happen by chance, to occur.

   • if a bird's nest chance to be before thee

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. XV, Practical — Devotional

     Once […] it chanced that Geoffrey Riddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather troublesome to our Abbot, made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain edifices going on at Glemsford.

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII

     Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

2. (archaic, transitive) To befall; to happen to.
3. To try or risk.

   Shall we carry the umbrella, or chance a rainstorm?

   • 1890, William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes

     He does chance it in stocks, but he's always played on the square, if you call stocks gambling.

4. To discover something by chance.

5. (Belize) To rob, cheat or swindle someone.

Synonyms

• (to happen) come to pass, occur, transpire; See also Thesaurus:happen
• (to happen to)
• (to try) test
• (to discover something) come across, come on, come upon, encounter, stumble upon
• (to cheat someone) deceive, fool, trick; See also Thesaurus:deceive

Derived terms

• bechance
• chance on
• chance one's arm
• chance upon

Translations

References

• chance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “chance”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance, from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cad? (“I fall, I die”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [????s?]

Noun

chance c (singular definite chancen, plural indefinite chancer)

1. A chance

Antonyms

• risiko

French

Etymology

From Old French chance, cheance (“accident, chance, luck”), from Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cad?ns, from cad? (“I fall, I die”). Doublet of cadence, borrowed from Italian.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???s/
• Rhymes: -??s

Noun

chance f (plural chances)

1. chance
2. luck

Antonyms

• adversité
• guigne (familiar)
• malchance
• malheur

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Dutch: kans
• ? Dutch: sjans
• ? German: Chance
• ? Persian: ????? (šâns)
• ? Polish: szansa
• ? Romanian: ?ans?
• ? Turkish: ?ans

Related terms

• choir

Further reading

• “chance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Alternative forms

• scians

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadenza.

Noun

chance f (invariable)

1. chance (possibility of a certain outcome)

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“falling”), from Latin cad?ns, from cad? (“I fall, I die”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?an.ts?/

Noun

chance f (oblique plural chances, nominative singular chance, nominative plural chances)

1. chance; fate
2. (rare) a throw of a die

Related terms

• cheoir

Descendants

• ? English: chance
  • Japanese: ???? (chansu) (borrowed)
• French: chance
  • ? Danish: chance
  • ? Italian: chance
  • ? Portuguese: chance
  • ? Romanian: ?ans?
  • ? Spanish: chance
  • ? Turkish: ?ans

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (cheance, supplement)
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (chance)
• chance on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance. Doublet of cadência.

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /????.s?/
• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /????.si/, [????.s??]

Noun

chance f (plural chances)

1. probability
2. chance, opportunity

   Synonym: oportunidade

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from French chance or, in Mexico, from English chance. Doublet of cadencia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /?t??an?e/, [?t??ãn?.?e]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America) /?t??anse/, [?t??ãn.se]

Noun

chance m or f (plural chances)

1. chance

Conjunction

chance

1. (Mexico) maybe, perchance, perhaps or possibly

   Synonyms: a lo mejor, quizá, quizás, tal vez

English

Etymology

From Middle English difference, from Old French difference, from Latin differentia (“difference”), from differ?ns (“different”), present participle of differre. Doublet of differentia.

Morphologically differ +? -ence.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?f??n(t)s/
• (rare) IPA^(key): /?d?f???n(t)s/
• Hyphenation: diffe?rence, dif?fer?ence

Noun

difference (countable and uncountable, plural differences)

1. (uncountable) The quality of being different.

   Antonyms: identity, sameness

2. (countable) A characteristic of something that makes it different from something else.

3. (countable) A disagreement or argument.

   We have our little differences, but we are firm friends.

   • 1714, Thomas Ellwood, The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: written by his own hand

     Away therefore went I with the constable, leaving the old warden and the young constable to compose their difference as they could.

4. (countable, uncountable) Significant change in or effect on a situation or state.
   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

     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.

6. (countable) The result of a subtraction; sometimes the absolute value of this result.

   The difference between 3 and 21 is 18.

7. (obsolete) Choice; preference.
8. (heraldry) An addition to a coat of arms to distinguish two people's bearings which would otherwise be the same. See augmentation and cadency.
9. (logic) The quality or attribute which is added to those of the genus to constitute a species; a differentia.
10. (logic circuits) A Boolean operation which is TRUE when the two input variables are different but is otherwise FALSE; the XOR operation (${\displaystyle \scriptstyle A{\overline {B}}+{\overline {A}}B}$).
11. (relational algebra) the set of elements that are in one set but not another (${\displaystyle \scriptstyle A{\overline {B}}}$).

Synonyms

• (characteristic of something that makes it different from something else): departure, deviation, divergence, disparity
• (disagreement or argument about something important): conflict, difference of opinion, dispute, dissension
• (result of a subtraction): remainder
• (significant change in state): nevermind

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• addition, summation: (augend) + (addend) = (summand) + (summand) = (sum, total)
• subtraction: (minuend) ? (subtrahend) = (difference)
• multiplication: (multiplier) × (multiplicand) = (factor) × (factor) = (product)
• division: (dividend) ÷ (divisor) = (quotient), remainder left over if divisor does not divide dividend

Verb

difference (third-person singular simple present differences, present participle differencing, simple past and past participle differenced)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To distinguish or differentiate.
   • 1672 Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions

     This simple spectation of the lungs is differenced from that which concomitates a pleurisy.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

Synonyms

• (to distinguish or differentiate): differentiate, distinguish

Translations

Related terms

Further reading

• difference in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• difference in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• differens, defference, defferense, dyfferens

Etymology

From Old French difference, from Latin differ?ntia; equivalent to differren (“to postpone”) +? -ence.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?dif?r?ns(?)/, /di?f?r?ns(?)/

Noun

difference (plural differences or difference)

1. Difference; the state of being different.
2. A difference; an element which separates.
3. Distinguishment; the finding or creation of dissimilarity.
4. (heraldry, rare) A heraldic cadency for a family's junior branch.
5. (mathematics, rare) The result of subtraction; an amount left over.
6. (mathematics, rare) An order in decimal representation of numbers.
7. (rare) Something that people do not agree upon.

Descendants

• English: difference
• Scots: difference

References

• “difference, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-07-31.

Old French

Alternative forms

• differance

Etymology

From Latin differentia.

Noun

difference f (oblique plural differences, nominative singular difference, nominative plural differences)

1. difference

Descendants

• ? Middle English: difference, differens, defference, defferense, dyfferens
  • English: difference
  • Scots: difference
• French: différence