differentiate between

differentiate between (someone or something)

1. To distinguish between multiple people or things. I have a very hard time differentiating between the Westie and the Cairn Terrier—they both look the same to me!
2. To make multiple people or things noticeably different. We hung floral garlands to differentiate between the wedding and reception areas.
See also: between, differentiate
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

differentiate between (someone or something and someone or something else)

 
1. to recognize the difference between people or things in any combination. (Usually refers to two entities.) In your painting, I cannot differentiate between the costume of the figure in front and the flowers in the background. Can't you differentiate between Billy and his brother? I can't differentiate between a donkey and a burro.
2. to establish or create the difference between people or things. Why don't you paint in some highlights to differentiate between the figure in the foreground and the flowers in the background?
See also: between, differentiate
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • differentiate between (someone or something)
  • differentiate from
  • differentiate
  • differentiate (someone or something) from (someone or something)
  • get a laugh
  • put aside (one's) differences
  • know which is which
  • tell which is which
  • combine
  • combine against
References in classic literature
The point was that Michael had been trained, from his first dawn of consciousness, to differentiate between black men and white men.
For he had to learn, first, the spoken numerals; second, to see with his eyes and in his brain differentiate between one object, and all other groups of objects up to and including the group of five; and, third, in his mind, to relate an object, or any group of objects, with its numerical name as uttered by Steward.
Asked to differentiate between European and Chinese poetry, some critics would perhaps insist upon their particular colour sense, instancing the curious fact that where we see blue to them it often appears green, and vice versa, or the tone theories that make their poems so difficult to understand; in fact, a learned treatise would be written on these lines, to prove that the Chinese poets were not human beings as we understand humanity at all.
The poor dear cannot differentiate between erudition and wisdom."
Had they known that Monsieur Thuran's past experience as a card sharp had trained his sense of touch to so fine a point that he could almost differentiate between cards by the mere feel of them, they would scarcely have felt that the plan was so entirely fair.
But White Fang soon learned to differentiate between thieves and honest men, to appraise the true value of step and carriage.
He had heard the savage, bestial snarls and roars of combat, and he had realized with a shudder that he could not differentiate between those of his guardian and those of the hairy ape.
Our hypothesis was that experienced readers in both specialties blinded to diagnosis would be unable to differentiate between a series of fatty lesions and that the variables of size, nodularity, and stranding would show no predictive association with these diagnoses.
(4,19,21) Moreover, surgeons generally do not differentiate between WDLs and ALTs when recommending treatment strategies.
When monthly expense reimbursement checks did not differentiate between substantiated expenses, overpayments and payments for tools, and excess amounts were not returned, the entire reimbursement was included in the employee's income.
* It does not differentiate between saturated fats and unsaturated fats;
The girls and their professor came to see that "life in a totalitarian society is where you are completely alone in an illusory world full of false promises and where you can no longer differentiate between your savior and your executioner." (p49)
Tom Roberts, president of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA), says that a Florida Senate bill, SB 1462, has been introduced and aims to differentiate between the two streams.
Just as God can't differentiate between us and Jesus, Jesus can't differentiate between us and himself because we are his body.
Although there are plausible reasons for these distributions, I would point out once again that, to be consistent, the first statement should have been supported by a chi-square-test, while in the second case, comparison with a Poisson distribution would have been necessary to differentiate between random and actual distribution.