Different means not the same as the other one. Two cups on the same shelf, one chipped and one not; the same street in July and in snow.
The preposition is the famous trap. Different FROM is safe anywhere in the world, different TO is ordinary in Britain and strange to Americans, and different THAN is ordinary in America and gets red pen in Britain. In front of a plural noun it can simply mean various, so he tried three different shops means three shops, not three peculiar ones. The noun is difference, the verb is differ, as in they differ on the price, and differently is the adverb. There is also a polite use worth spotting: when someone looks at your painting and says well, it's different, they are not admiring it.
1adjectivedifferentNot the same as something else.~17%
“Her answer was different from mine in every line.”
synonyms: dissimilar, unlike
2adjectivevariousVarious; several and not identical.~50%
“We tried four different routes before one worked.”
3adjectiveunusualUnusual, out of the ordinary.~33%
“The restaurant is a bit different, since you sit on the floor.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Different comes from Latin differens, the participle of differo, to differ, and it travelled through Old French and Middle English with its spelling barely touched. Old English carried the idea with ungelic, which survives quietly as unalike. English kept the Latin word for daily use and left the older one to gather dust.
Middle English
different
English, today
different
Built from
From Middle English different. From Middle English different, from Old French different, from Latin differēns, present active participle of differō (“to differ”). See also differ. Mostly native Old English ungelic in common usage, which lives on as unalike in Modern English.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA