In everyday English, people usually use the phrases tell the difference between somebody/something or tell somebody/something from somebody/something, rather than distinguish: 在日常英语中,人们一般使用短语 tell the difference between sb/sth 或 tell sb/sth from sb/sth,而不用 distinguish
He can’t tell the difference between right and wrong.
他无法分辨是非。
How do you tell cancer cells from healthy cells?
怎么区分癌细胞和健康细胞?
2[transitiveT not in progressive]DIFFERENT to be the thing that makes someone or something different or special 使有区别,使有特色
distinguish somebody/something from
The factor that distinguishes this company from the competition is customer service.
使这家公司在竞争中脱颖而出的是其客户服务。
distinguishing feature/mark/characteristic
The main distinguishing feature of this species is the leaf shape.
这一品种的主要特征是叶子的形状。
3[transitiveT not in progressive]SEE written to be able to see the shape of something or hear a particular sound 看清;认出;听出
The light was too dim for me to distinguish anything clearly.
光线太暗,我什么也看不清。
4distinguish yourselfDO WELLto do something so well that people notice and remember you 表现突出
He distinguished himself on several occasions in the civil war.
他在内战中屡次表现突出。
Examples from the Corpus
distinguish yourself• Look, we were just kids, who like all kids want to distinguish ourselves from our parents.• Eastwood distinguished himself as an actor before becoming a director.• Bradley has distinguished himself as the top scorer on the team.• He distinguished himself as third-string quarterback for the football team.• During the battle five Troll Slayers distinguished themselves by attacking and destroying three Trolls which were perilously close to crushing Duregar himself.• Tim distinguished himself for eleven years in Miami, including the history-making 1972 undefeated season that climaxed in the 1973 SuperBowl.• She has been unable to effectively distinguish herself from other objects on a sensorimotor level.• The Conservatives under John Major tried to distinguish themselves from their Thatcherite past by stressing a commitment to quality public services.• He was clever, but disinclined to distinguish himself in study, athletic but lazy, honest but argumentative.• Perhaps Hincmar's silence here was tactful, since Charles the Bald's sons had not distinguished themselves in the traditionalroles.• After joining the newspaper, she quickly distinguished herself with a series of hard-hitting exposés.
Examples from the Corpus
distinguish• The difficulty in distinguishing between hypotheses was not surprising since only 209 families with Crohn's disease were available for analysis.• They had to distinguish between problems because of a lack of ability from those of a lack of motivation.• Even a expert would find it hard to distinguish between the originalpainting and the copy.• From that time onwards there was reason still, but not so much reason, to distinguish between trusts and legacies.• The trick in improving quality was to distinguish between variationdue to random causes and that due to specific or assignable causes.• Several thousand minerals can be distinguished, each defined by its own set of properties.• There's not a lot that distinguishes her from the other candidates.• A tinybaby soon learns to distinguish its mother's face from other adults' faces.• It was just possible to distinguish the darkenedvillage below.• I shall not attempt to distinguish the particular sources of individual ideas.• What really distinguishes the proposal?• I couldn't distinguish the words, but his tone was clear.• What distinguishes this approach from previous attempts to deal with HIV?
distinguish between• Young children often can't distinguish betweenTVprograms and commercials.
distinguishing feature/mark/characteristic• You know, to put on my passport where it says any scars or distinguishing features.• The contrast of his short-cropped white hair against his deep clayey tan was his only distinguishing feature.• Two rectangularbuildings there had a pitsunk in one corner which might be taken as a distinguishing feature.• It is reason, he argued, that is the distinguishing feature of human beings as against other examples of creation.• But the striking and distinguishing feature of organisms is organisation without such simplespatialregularity.• It has a completely unique quality and is obviously one of the distinguishing features of our century.• The evolution of a rudimentarybureaucracy was, by 1180, the distinguishing feature of royal and princely administrations.• The distinguishing feature of the Africanelephant is the size of its ears.• But race is not the distinguishing characteristic of this growing rapeepidemic.• The melodies of most composers have distinguishing characteristics which make them instantly identifiable.
Origindistinguish
(1500-1600)Frenchdistinguer, from Latindistinguere“to separate using a sharp pointed object”