different between differ vs diff

English

Etymology

From Middle English differren, from Old French differer, from Latin differ? (“carry apart, put off, defer; differ”), from dis- (“apart”) + fer? (“carry, bear”). Compare Ancient Greek ??????? (diaphér?). Doublet of defer (etymology 1).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?d?f?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?d?f?/
• Rhymes: -?f?(r)
• Hyphenation: dif?fer

Verb

differ (third-person singular simple present differs, present participle differing, simple past and past participle differed)

1. (intransitive) Not to have the same traits or characteristics; to be unalike or distinct.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:differ

2. (intransitive, people, groups, etc.) To have diverging opinions, disagree.
   • May 11, 1827, George Canning, Changes in the Administration

     I differ from the honourable baronet on both these subjects

3. (intransitive) To be separated in quantity.

Derived terms

• agree to differ
• beg to differ

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• riffed

Latin

Verb

differ

1. second-person singular present active imperative of differ?

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Noun

diff (plural diffs)

1. (slang) Abbreviation of difference.

   A peach and an apricot? What's the diff?

2. (computing) Any program which compares two files or sets of files and outputs a description of the differences between them.
3. (computing) The output of a diff program. A diff file.
   • 2004, Paul Graham, Great Hackers, Essay:

     I didn't want to waste people's time telling them things they already knew. It's more efficient just to give them the diffs.

4. (medicine) Abbreviation of differential: differential of types of white blood cell in a complete blood count.
5. (rock climbing) A difficult route.

Verb

diff (third-person singular simple present diffs, present participle diffing, simple past and past participle diffed)

1. (transitive, computing) To run a diff program on (files or items) so as to produce a description of the differences between them, as for a patch file.
2. (transitive, computing) To compare two files or other objects, manually or otherwise.

Proper noun

diff

1. (computing) A program, historically part of the Unix operating system, which compares two files or sets of files and outputs a description of the differences between them.

Related terms

• (computing) diff file

See also

• (computing) patch