Distinct means clearly separate — one thing, not blurred into the next. Two distinct piles of paper on the desk, three distinct knocks at the door, a flavour in the sauce you can pick out from all the rest.
It has a second job: clear enough to leave no doubt. A distinct smell of burning, a distinct improvement, a distinct possibility that the flight is cancelled. When you set one thing against another it takes FROM — Welsh is distinct from English. Watch the near-twin distinctive, which means marking something out as its own: a distinctive voice is one you would know anywhere, while distinct voices are simply separate ones. The adverb is distinctly, and it loves memory: I distinctly remember locking that door.
1adjectivedistinctClearly separate from other things and not the same as them.
“The island has two distinct dialects, one at each end.”
synonyms: separate, discrete
2adjectiveunmistakableClear and unmistakable; strong enough to notice at once.
“There was a distinct smell of paint in the hallway.”
synonyms: unmistakable, marked
Distinct is the past participle of Latin distinguere, to distinguish, which is why the two words feel so close. It reached English through Old French destincter and Middle English distincte, where it belonged to the business of telling things apart. Something distinct is something the eye has already separated out.
Latin
distinctus
Old French
destincter
Middle English
distincte
English, today
distinct
Built from
From Middle English distincte, past participle of distincten (“to distinguish, discern”), from Old French destincter, from Latin distinctus, past participle of distinguere (“to distinguish”); see distinguish.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA