tell the difference

phrase

: to see how two or more people or things are unlike each other

It's hard to tell the difference between one action movie and another.

The new version is supposed to be much better than the old one, but I can't tell the difference (between them).

Examples of tell the difference in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The best way to tell the difference is that a scam is generic, but a real gathering today is highly specific. — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 1 Nov. 2026

Traditional website defenses cannot tell the difference, and end up treating the customer as the threat. — Dvir Ginzburg, Fortune, 27 Oct. 2026

Another way to tell the difference is to look at where the leaves attach to the stem. — Madeline Buiano, Martha Stewart, 22 Oct. 2026

And sometimes people in deep depression cannot tell the difference between mental pain and physical pain, because everything together is a great kind of suffering. — Terry Gross, NPR, 13 Oct. 2026

Rhymes for tell the difference

• indifference