<p>I've seen several responses to questions asking for IDEs where text editors were suggested and vice-versa. That makes me think that people treat them as the same thing, where I draw clear distinctions.</p>

<ol>
<li>How do you define "text editor" and "IDE"?</li>
<li>Do you see a difference between the two tools?</li>
</ol>

<p>Note that I accepted an answer which I think best addressed the concepts of "text editor" and "IDE". However, it's just my personal opinion of what best addresses the question and I will continue to check in on this question from time to time to see if there's a better answer and I will accept that one.</p>

The confusion arises from the fact that a text editor is a core component of every IDE. But, an IDE has much more than just a text editor; it also has interfaces to compilers, debuggers, profilers, reference material, and more.
Many text editors have plugins or other flexible extension mechanisms, often including the ability to "wrap" external tools like those I mentioned above. The key difference, IMHO, is the "I" in IDE - integrated. An IDE is (again, IMHO) something that's purposefully designed to support a specific set of tools, one of which is a text editor.