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Glite Dictionary
🚫 To treat unfairly 🔎 To tell apart 🔍 Able to tell differences
to discriminate

to discriminate

120 4.9
To treat someone worse because of their race, sex or religion
  • verb
  • /dɪsˈkrɪməˌneɪt/
  • Offensive
translation icon : discriminar
  • It is unacceptable to discriminate against individuals based on their race or ethnicity.
  • discriminate on the basis
  • discriminate in favor of
  • discriminate against women

He thinks white people are discriminated against in South Africa.

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Examples

  • Tax and regulatory policies should not discriminate between foreign and domestic entities.

    Academic text (2008)

  • And yet even though they hire in a blind fashion, they do not discriminate against any group or any sex.

  • And they feel it's OK to discriminate against you on the basis of your views.

    Rob Moore

  • We do not discriminate when it comes to the opportunities.

  • Unfortunately, it's still legal to discriminate against sex workers and fire somebody because they used to be a sex worker in normal jobs.

    After Porn Ends 3 (2018)

  • Of course, it's illegal to discriminate.

    Gattaca (1997)

  • We don't discriminate based on gender.

    She's the Man (2006)

  • I have never in my life been discriminated against because I'm female.

  • I'd watch her being discriminated against because of her gender and status.

  • The Constitution is absolutely clear that, particularly as a public institution, we cannot and will not discriminate against speakers because of their perspectives or because of the beliefs of those who wish to host it.

    No Safe Spaces (2019)

Synonyms

to persecute
vsto discriminate
98 7.0

To treat someone badly for a long time because of their race, religion or political beliefs

treats people differently often without cruel or prolonged action
to other
vsto discriminate
  • Offensive
1 8.6

Treat a person or group as strange and not included

treats people differently in action rather than only seeing them as alien

How Discriminatory

to persecute
98 7.0
to discriminate
  • Offensive
120 4.9
to bias
6 4.9
to favor
  • US
286 2.0

Surface Forms

discriminate infinitive
discriminated past
discriminated past participle
discriminating present participle
discriminates third person singular

Morphology

discriminate = dis + crimin + ate

The pejorative sense ('treat differently, especially worse') is a semantic extension of the neutral verb sense and learners who know the neutral meaning may infer the related negative sense, but the social/ethical connotations require extra cultural knowledge.

Etymology

Discriminate comes from the Latin parts dis- 'apart' and cernere 'to separate'. A helpful way to remember the unfair meaning is to imagine someone 'separating' people into groups and treating one group worse, which is why to discriminate against someone means to treat them differently because of who they are.