1 a : the act of discriminating b : the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently
2 : the quality or power of finely distinguishing
3 a : the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b : prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment <racial discrimination>
Hannah recently became manager of a software development company. She believes that she can boost sales and productivity by hiring a younger, more tech-savvy marketing representative, despite the fact that Antonio, the company's current marketing rep, has done superb work. Antonio recently completed a highly successful ad blitz that generated much industry-wide buzz and attracted numerous new clients. Hannah fires Antonio, who is 62 and close to retirement age anyway, she reasons, and replaces him with Cheyenne, a 35-year-old marketing whiz. Hannah discriminated against Antonio by firing him because of his age. Now thats what I call Discrimination...
The (often intentional) exclusion of any group of things or people, especially white, protestant, conservative, middle or upper class, well educated males. Discrimination is often coupled with hatred of the excluded group.
"Americans once discriminated against Native and African Americans and other foreign people groups so much that through attempting to rectify our mistake we have outdone ourselves and discriminated against ourselves instead! Not that there isn't still some discrimination against the aforementioned groups, but it is dramatically less so that it was many many years ago."