distinctions

Individual military commanders are granted discretion on these distinctions, placing the determination of honor or shame in their hands.

To be socially dead is to lose the culturally conferred distinctions of possessing a family, country and respect — it is to be recognized as what Patterson would call an “enemy outsider” living in the community as a “criminal insider.”

Among other key distinctions, the Constantinian Order is attached to a crown, and its Grand Master is a would-be king.

The language does offer contextual distinctions from other monikers used to address a group of people.

But if most legal distinctions between classes in America were officially banished in 1789 — among white people, that is — considerable inequality of wealth and capital not only remained, but increased and hardened in place.