distinguishing

1. 1
   adjective

   Serving to mark something as different or to set it apart from others.

   Like a fingerprint, which belongs to only one person and tells them apart from everyone else.

   Her careful handwriting was a distinguishing trait that set her letters apart.

   The museum records each painting's distinguishing characteristics for authentication.

   Similardistinctive, characteristic, defining

   Note

   Its natural home is right before a noun of identification: a distinguishing feature, distinguishing characteristics, a distinguishing trait. Richard Ellis's The Book of Sharks (1983) uses it of a species with no obvious distinguishing characteristics at all. Don't confuse it with distinguished, which praises. Distinguishing only sorts one thing from another. It does accept more and most, so one feature can be more distinguishing than another.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of distinguish.

   The judges are distinguishing the finalists by tiny differences in technique.

   Distinguishing fact from rumor takes patience and a careful eye.

   Note

   One spelling does two grammatical jobs. As a participle it builds progressives (the judges are distinguishing the finalists). As a gerund it heads a noun phrase while still taking a direct object (distinguishing fact from rumor). It can carry any of the verb's meanings, including the reflexive one: someone distinguishing herself through her accomplishments. Before a noun, as in a distinguishing feature, the same word is the adjective instead.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act by which something is set apart from or told apart from other things.

   Like a sorter at a recycling plant separating glass from plastic before each goes its own way.

   The distinguishing of edible mushrooms from poisonous ones requires real expertise.

   Careful distinguishing between the two diseases guided the doctor's treatment.

   Similardifferentiation, discrimination, distinction, separation

   Note

   The fully nominal form, and the one that needs of. Where the gerund takes its object directly (distinguishing fact from rumor), the noun says the distinguishing of edible mushrooms from poisonous ones. It can even be counted. R. R. Cox, writing on Schutz's theory of relevance in 2012, sets distinguishings beside identifyings. The plural suits philosophical writing that treats each act of telling apart as a separate event.

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