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Distribution vs withdrawal for an investment account
A mutual fund makes distributions of its dividends and capital gains, usually once a year, or seminanually or quarterly or monthly etc; it does not distribute any capital losses to its shareholders but holds them for offsetting capital gains in future years, (cf, this answer of mine to a different question). A stock pays  dividends; a stock neither has nor does it  distribute capital gains: you get capital gains (or losses) when you sell the shares of the stock, but these are not called distributions of any kind. Similarly, you incur capital gains or losses when you  redeem shares of mutual funds but these are not called distributions  either. Note that non-ETF mutual fund shares are generally not bought and sold on stock exchanges; you buy shares directly from the fund and you sell shares back (redeem them) directly to the fund.  All of the above transactions are taxable events for the year to you unless the shares are being held in a tax-deferred account or are tax-free for other reasons (e.g. dividends from a municipal bond fund).