verb
- Detect with the senses.
- usage: "The fleeing convicts were picked out of the darkness by the watchful prison guards"; "I can't make out the faces in this photograph"
- synonyms: spot, recognize, recognise, distinguish, discern, pick out, make out, tell apart
adjective
- Having or revealing keen insight and good judgment.
- usage: "a discerning critic"; "a discerning reader"
- Unobtrusively perceptive and sympathetic.
- usage: "a discerning editor"; "a discreet silence"
- synonyms: discreet
- Quick to understand."a kind and apprehensive friend- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- synonyms: apprehensive
- Able to make or detect effects of great subtlety; sensitive.
- usage: "discerning taste"; "a discerning eye for color"
WordNet 3.0 © 2006 by Princeton University
| APA | WordNet. (2010). discerning. Retrieved September 22, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/discerning/definitions/1172518 |
| Chicago | WordNet. 2010. "discerning" http://smartdefine.org/discerning/definitions/1172518 (accessed September 22, 2026). |
| Harvard | WordNet 2010, discerning, Smart Define, viewed 22 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/discerning/definitions/1172518>. |
| MLA | WordNet. "discerning" 23 October 2010. Web. 22 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/discerning/definitions/1172518> |