discernverb/dɪˈsɜːn/

• 1

  To detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.

  • Meanwhile the brig had altered her tack, and was moving slowly to the east. Three hours later and the keenest eye could not have discerned her top-sails above the horizon.
• 2

  To perceive, recognize, or comprehend with the mind; to descry.

  • If they discern any evidences of wrong-going in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, they will consider me altogether mistaken.
  • General reading readiness is assessed by tests and is also estimated by teachers who are often skillful at discerning just when a pupil is ready to learn to read. The important thing to remember is that jumping the gun is usually self-defeating.
• 3

  To distinguish something as being different from something else; to differentiate or discriminate.

  • He was too young to discern right from wrong.
  • The severity of judgement, they say, makes men censorious and unapt to pardon the errors and infirmities of other men: and on the other side, celerity of fancy makes the thoughts less steady than is necessary to discern exactly between right and wrong.
• 4

  To perceive differences.