tell the difference

idiom

: to see how two or more people or things are unlike each other

It's hard to tell the difference between one action movie and another.

The new version is supposed to be much better than the old one, but I can't tell the difference (between them).

Examples of tell the difference in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

If a third-party judge following a blind conversation between a computer and a human can’t tell the difference between the two, the device passes the test. —Erik Sherman, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025

Deepfake audio detection software often struggles to tell the difference between real and synthetic voices. —Kevin Collier, NBC News, 10 Mar. 2025

There’s a particular beep-boop-beep-boop that would be hard for anyone but devout fans of either artist to tell the difference between. —Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 7 Mar. 2025

There are other ways to do this, from using a letterbox around some scenes to simply trusting that viewers are able to tell the difference based on context. —Erik Kain, Forbes, 5 Mar. 2025

Rhymes for tell the difference

• indifference