forskjell

Forskjell is a Norwegian noun meaning the quality or state of being not the same, or the degree to which two or more things differ. The word is used in everyday language and across disciplines to indicate contrast, distinction, or disparity. The etymology traces to for- meaning “forward” or “before” and skille meaning “to separate,” related to old forms such as forsikje/forskilja in Old Norse, reflecting the sense of separating or distinguishing things.

In mathematics, forskjell denotes the result of subtracting one value from another; for example, the difference between 7 and 3 is 4. The term is also used for the difference between sets, where the difference A \ B consists of elements that are in A but not in B.

In statistics and data analysis, differences are used to compare observations, such as the difference between sample means or measurements, and are central to tests and confidence intervals. In philosophy and linguistics, differences describe contrasts between concepts or linguistic forms, contributing to analysis of meaning, identification, and categorization.

Common related terms include likhet (similarity) and ulikhet (inequality or disparity). The concept of difference is a fundamental idea across disciplines, often paired with notions of sameness, similarity, and change.