Dictionary

indifferentiate en · VERB

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Italic *n̥- Latin in-bor. Middle English in- English in- Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ ▲ Proto-Indo-European *trísinflu. Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *bʰéreti Proto-Italic *ferō Latin ferō Latin differō Latin differēns Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ia Latin differentia New Latin differentiō New Latin differentiātusbor. English differentiate English indifferentiate From in- + differentiate.

Meanings

1. To make less distinct; to obscure any differentiation.
   • In Britain, Gay Times discreetly became GT in March 2007, presumably all the better to indifferentiate it from the titles of other magazines, such as GQ and FHM, and thereby to consolidate continuities within the male homosocial spectrum. 2016, David Alderson, Sex, Needs and Queer Culture: From Liberation to the Postgay:
   • if there be not in nature a state exactly the opposite of the primary action, it appears to endeavor to indifferentiate itself, that is, to make its superior power available in the extinction of the change wrought in it from without (by the medicine), in the place of which it substitutes its normal state. 1895, Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine, page 76:
   • To "reconcile" is not to harmonize but to indifferentiate polar differences, vivaciously balancing the oppositional tensions. 2003, Stephen C. Foster, Hanne Bergius, Crisis and the Arts: The History of Dada - Volume 5, page 178:
   • Religious indifferentiation therefore stands for a third category of relation with the sacred, situated between the full identification of the sacred with the profane (as in ecstatic states) and their total separation (as in modern, disenchanted culture). Typically, folk religiosity greatly affirms the disposition to “indifferentiate”. 2014, Steven J. Sutcliffe, Ingvild Saelid Gilhus, New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion:

Forms