Acknowledgement of the importance of identity to politics and widespread concern about responding adequately to marginalized groups have made otherness a salient concept in contemporary political thought. Yet, there has not appeared in the literature any attempt to clarify the distinctive forms utilized in contemporary political theory. This is problematic because otherness is especially prone to mistranslation within and between the disparate political discussions its various forms are pertinent to. A vocabulary that can express the nuances in the different concepts is needed. With that goal in mind, this paper distinguishes four concepts of otherness salient in contemporary political thought, the areas of political life each is pertinent to, and it discusses several confusions produced by lack of attention to their differences