discrimination
Pluraldiscriminations
- 1Unfair treatment of a person or group based on their class or category rather than their individual qualities.
Many employees reported discrimination based on their religion.
The agency investigates discrimination in hiring and promotion.
Similarprejudice, bias, bigotry, unfairness, inequity
Oppositeequality, fairness, impartiality, tolerance
Note
The preposition carries the harm: discrimination against someone means treatment to their disadvantage. William Beach Lawrence uses it this way in his 1865 essay "The Suffrage Question," where a state constitution "makes the discrimination against" one class of citizens. The kind is usually named just before the noun, as in racial, sexual or reverse discrimination. Used uncountably it names the practice, and countably it names particular acts.
- 2Keen judgment in recognizing fine distinctions, especially in matters of good taste.
A collector of real discrimination can spot a forgery at a glance.
Her discrimination in music set her apart from casual listeners.
Similardiscernment, taste, judgment, refinement, perception
Note
This is a quality a person has, where the act of telling apart is something done. Its natural home is the phrase of discrimination. "You are a man of discrimination," says a character in Alfred Gladstone's The Man of the Hour (1863), meaning a man of taste. Tastefulness comes close, but this word keeps an edge of judgment. The adjective discriminating praises the same keen eye.
- 3The act of perceiving differences between things in order to understand them correctly and make sound decisions.
Careful discrimination between the two species depends on tiny differences in the leaves.
Wine tasting demands fine discrimination among subtle flavors.
Similardifferentiation
Note
The sense closest to the Latin source: discrīmināre meant simply "to distinguish," and the noun entered English use in the 17th century. Experimental psychology keeps it exact, speaking of visual discrimination learning in pigeons or a two-choice discrimination in bats. Here the noun takes between (a discrimination between two angles) and names a judgment, which sets it apart from the "unfair treatment" meaning.
Less common meaning
- 4A distinguishing mark or characteristic by which one thing is told apart from another.
The naturalist noted every discrimination that separated the two beetles.
The great discriminations of land are three, and it concerns us to know whether it is poor, or rich, or in a middle state.
1800, Marcus Terentius Varro, The Three Books of M. Terentius Varro Concerning AgricultureNote
Here the word names the mark itself rather than the act of noticing it, a concrete, countable use that is now obsolete. Late eighteenth-century prose still has it, and the 1800 English translation of Marcus Terentius Varro on agriculture states that "the great discriminations of land are three." The plural is the telltale sign of this sense. In modern writing, characteristic or distinguishing mark says the same thing safely.
Practice
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Origin
A learned borrowing from Latin discrīminātiō, the action noun of the verb discrīminō, discrīmināre ("distinguish"); it is equivalent to discriminate plus -ion and has been in English use since the 17th century.