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distinction has 4 distinct synonyms spread across 2 of its 4 senses. Each sense below keeps its own list, because a synonym belongs to a meaning and not to a word: swapping one sense's substitute into another sense's sentence is how a thesaurus makes writing worse. WordNet records no antonym for it — antonymy is a relation between word forms rather than concepts, so it is deliberately sparse.
Counts are distinct word forms across every sense. A synonym that appears under three senses is counted once here and shown three times below, under each sense it belongs to.
a discrimination between things as different and distinct on the basis of their characteristics or attributes
“it is necessary to make a distinction between love and infatuation”
high status importance owing to marked superiority
Synonyms, antonyms and the broader and narrower relations for distinction come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Full sources and licences.
“a scholar of great eminence”
a distinguishing difference between similar things or people
“he learned the distinction between gold and lead”
an honor awarded to someone in recognition of achievement or superiority
“she graduated with the highest distinction”