DISCERNING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Discerning

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/dɪsˈərnɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Discern v. t. (past & past part. discerned; pres. part. 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." "A counterfeit stone which thine eye can not discern from a right stone."

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." "Our unassisted sight... is not acute enough to discern the minute texture of visible objects." "I wake, and I discern the truth."

Synonyms: To perceive; distinguish; discover; penetrate; discriminate; espy; descry; detect. See Perceive.

Discern v. i.

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."

To make cognizance. (Obs.)

adjective

Discerning adj. Acute; shrewd; sagacious; sharp-sighted.

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Etymology of 'Discerning'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Discerning" Quotes from Famous Books

... at this discerning guest, Mrs. Gallosh thereupon led forward her two youngest daughters (aged fifteen and thirteen), who, with an air so delightfully coy that it fell like a ray of sunshine on the poor Baron's heart, presented him with their ...

— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... family, and were observant of men, were wont to remark that the son would never fill the father's shoes. These family friends, I may perhaps add, were generally markers at billiard-tables, head grooms at race-courses, or other men of that sharp, discerning class. Seeing that I introduce these gentlemen to my readers at the Kanturk Hotel, in South Main Street, Cork, it may be perhaps as well to add that they were both Englishmen; so that mistakes on that matter ...

— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... ordering his thought would need to possess, in addition to the highest musical and dramatic qualifications a metaphysical habit of mind such as is rare at the present day, and a sympathetic capacity for discerning the grains of golden truth amidst the dross. He must construct anew. Wagner's theoretical edifice will not stand as it is; it is too loosely jointed; but the materials are valuable. That there will ever be a real science ...

— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... literary contributions were confined to a part of the "Notes on Current Events," the portion of the paper that naturally attracted least outside notice, and was rarely singled out for praise. It is true that a discerning schoolmaster from another school remarked that these notes displayed "restrained strength even more remarkable in boys than the qualities of the other parts of the paper." I am ashamed to say we ...

— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... of serene beauty, and to the gifts of Nature he added the endowments of the mind. From his parents in household lays he learned the great deeds of the old Decii. Once, at a great spectacle, the whole school at the recitation of the Lay of the Decii turned their eyes on Importunus, discerning that he would one day rival his ancestors. Thus his widowed mother brought him up, him and all his troop of brothers, and gave to the Curia as many Consulars as she had sons[280]. All these private virtues I have discerned ...

— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

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