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Those these seem to come up all the time, for the most part I'm unclear as to
how to differentiate them. Per the title, what are the subtleties in use and
meaning between: 特殊, 格段, 特段, 特別, and 別段?

Thank you!
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word-choice words
What are the subtleties in use and meaning between: 特殊, 格段, 特段, 特別, and 別段?
# Edited

> **特殊, 格段, 特段, 特別, and 別段**

I think my previous answer was inadequate, so I carefully examined various
materials and dictionaries and thought about the answer, but by this answer I
thought I could not solve the questioner's problem and I decided to stop the
work.

After that, I thought about the way to explain subtle differences between the
five words of similar meanings given by the questioner to those who are not
Japanese native who are studying Japanese.

First, I looked up the meaning of five words in an English dictionary and
Japanese dictionaries. From the meanings of Japanese dictionaries and example
sentences, I could understand the difference between the five words in
Japanese. However, it is almost impossible to distinguish between the meanings
of each other from the meanings in English. Every word has the meaning of
"special". I could understand the reason that the questioner wanted to know
the subtle difference in meanings between them.

I thought about how to grasp the difference between these words if we are
Japanese.  
First of all, we first check the sound by looking at these words. Next, we
suppose some possible words from the sound, then narrow down the words by
looking at the kanjis of each word.  
As an answer to the questioner, I thought, the analogy of narrowing down the
possible words by the kajis is effective.

All five words given are made up of two kanjis. If I separate all the kanjis
constituting the five words apart, I could get five different kanjis.
Combining the five kanjis by 2 characters gives a total of 20 different words.
Of these words, 13 are meaningless combinations, and only 7 are left as
meaningful words. The questioner found out five of the seven meaningful words.

First, I looked up the meanings of five individual kanjis in a kanji
dictionary. Next I looked up the composition of the kanjis of seven words and
gave it a drawing shown below. Since all the words have the meaning of "
_special_ ", I named the title of the drawing " **Members of the Special
family** ". Next I imagined the meaning of each of the seven words from the
meaning of the kanjis constituting each word and wrote them in the drawing.
Lastly I added the meanings in English that I looked up in the dictionary
before.

From the meanings in English it is difficult to distinguish between the
meanings of the words of each other, but from the meanings I imagined, the
meaning of the nuance may be felt a little by native Japanese as me.

Although the result is not sufficient, I felt that such a probing method may
be meaningful for knowing the similar words' differences.

## [![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugwVH.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ugwVH.jpg)

# Original

[Here](http://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E7%89%B9%E5%88%A5) is a table of
the synonyms of 「特別」 classified according to the meaning. If you have enough
time, you could know which word is used well by checking the frequency of each
word on the Internet.

For example:

特別 879,000,000 hits  
格段 21,700,000 hits  
格別 16,400,000 hits  
特殊 622,000,000 hits
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In daily language, **特別** is the word with broadest meaning that is
approximately same range as English _special_. 特別 can replace any other word
you've mentioned in most settings (unless there's predefined terminology),
only with possibly less exact and/or apposite feeling.

**特殊** suggests that something belongs to a rarer type/class rather than one-
off uniqueness. The word carries an overtone that you're trying to categorize
it. The word also sometimes stands for euphemism of unlaudable quirkiness.

**格段** means either:

  * "of distinguished level/rank"
  * "by far / great amount more X"

> 燃費が格段に向上した。 _Its fuel efficiency has greatly improved._

**特段** and **別段** specifically refer to that treatment or consideration is
special. You can read the 段 as "case", so that they mean "of special case" and
"of separate case". 特段 sounds like needing more carefulness than 別段. It should
be noted that they may be more seen as a part of idiom "not particularly".

> （特段／別段）の定めがない限り _unless otherwise specified_  
>  （特段／別段／特別）異状は見当たらなかった。 _I found nothing particularly unusual._

* * *

**BONUS**  
**特異** : peculiar, singular  
**格別** : exceptional  
**別格** : in a class by its own
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