discrimination
Pluraldiscriminations
- 1Unfair treatment of someone because of the group they belong to, such as race, sex, or age.
Like a club that turns people away just because of the color of their shirt.
Workers faced discrimination because of their age.
The new law makes discrimination in housing illegal.
Similarprejudice, bias, bigotry, unfairness, inequity
Oppositeequality, fairness, impartiality, tolerance
Note
- 2The skill of telling good things from bad, especially in matters of taste and quality.
Like having a good ear that can hear when one note is even slightly wrong.
She chose the wine with great discrimination.
His discrimination in art made him a trusted buyer.
Similardiscernment, taste, judgment, refinement, perception
Note
- 3The act of noticing how things differ so you can understand them and choose well.
Like sorting buttons into the right boxes by looking closely at each one.
It takes discrimination to tell which berries are safe to eat.
Good discrimination between colors helps an artist mix paint.
Similardifferentiation
Note
Less common meaning
- 4A mark or feature that makes one thing different from another.
Like a special mark a baker presses into bread so people know who made it.
The potter pressed a small discrimination into each bowl he made.
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 AgricultureHere, discriminations means features that tell one kind of land from another.Note
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Latin discriminatio, from a verb meaning "to distinguish." English has used it since the 1600s.