discrimen

noun4

1. •
   A distinction, particularity, or distinguishing feature.
2. •
   A crisis or turning point; A situation that changes how the future will unfold.

   • But civil war creates as many boundaries as it destroys: its keynote is division, and it is itself a discrimen. — 1992
3. •
   A pattern or organizing principle that forms the basis of moral judgements.

   • The discrimen, or pattern, that each theologian eventually chooses is his or her own distinctive construal of the discrimen that guides his or her critical theological judgements. — 2000
4. •
   A visible dividing line where two structures come together.

   • Mid-ventrally the sternopleurites unite in a suture, the discrimen, whose inflection forms the very high transparent lamella of the discrimen. — 1960