discern Meaning, Definition & Usage

verb detect with the senses
recognize; spot; make out; tell apart; recognise; distinguish; pick out.
- The fleeing convicts were picked out of the darkness by the watchful prison guards
- I can't make out the faces in this photograph

F. discerner, L. discernere, discretum; dis- + cernere to separate, distinguish. See Certain, and cf. Discreet.

imperfect & past participle Discerned ; present participle & verbal noun Discerning

To see and identify by noting a difference or differences; to note the distinctive character of; to discriminate; to distinguish.
To discern such buds as are fit to produce blossoms. Boyle.

A counterfeit stone which thine eye can not discern from a right stone. Robynson (More's Utopia).
To see by the eye or by the understanding; to perceive and recognize; as, to discern a difference.
And [I] beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding. Prov. vii. 7.

Our unassisted sight . . . is not acute enough to discern the minute texture of visible objects. Beattie.

I wake, and I discern the truth. Tennyson.
Syn. -- To perceive; distinguish; discover; penetrate; discriminate; espy; descry; detect. See Perceive.

To see or understand the difference; to make distinction; as, to discern between good and evil, truth and falsehood.
More than sixscore thousand that cannot discern between their right hand their left. Jonah iv. 11.
To make cognizance. Obs. Bacon.