same difference
4
6.0
- idiom
- Informal
:
es lo mismo
- Choosing vanilla or chocolate is really the same difference when you're craving ice cream.
- same difference," she said
Examples
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These self-righteous invasions will happen under Republican or Democrat administrations, of course... same difference. :)
Blog text (10) -
Same difference, really.
Blog text (10) -
It's the same difference as between a man and a woman.
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Which, for a lot of people, is the same difference.
Blog text (20) -
Here or in the synagogue, to God it's the same difference.
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But my mom says same difference, if you're that careless with your life.
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It's the same difference.
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Same difference, Mr. Boone.
Fiction book (1998) -
It's sort of the same difference between callable and non-callable bonds; mortgage loans are "early-payable" by borrowers.
Blog text (15) -
If you are going to criticize the crunchy crowd for fear-mongering about hospitals, be fair about the fact that portraying every transfer as an absolute disaster emergency is the same difference.
Blog text (19)
Synonyms
34
3.9
Exactly the same person or thing
Two choices that are almost the same and make no real difference
Almost the same with very little difference
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase 'same difference' is a paradoxical, fixed idiom whose intended meaning 'no significant difference' is not directly compositional from the literal senses of 'same' and 'difference'. A B1 learner who knows the words is unlikely to predict this usage without prior exposure because the combination is idiomatic and pragmatically conventional rather than transparently derived.
Etymology
Same difference gives a simple picture: two things that look different but do the same job, like two keys that look different but open the same door. So when people say same difference, they mean 'no real difference' or that the small difference does not matter.