verb
- Discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of.
- usage: "She detected high levels of lead in her drinking water"; "We found traces of lead in the paint"
- Get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally.
- usage: "I learned that she has two grown-up children"; "I see that you have been promoted"
- Make a discovery, make a new finding.
- usage: "Roentgen discovered X-rays"; "Physicists believe they found a new elementary particle"
- synonyms: find
- Make a discovery.
- usage: "She found that he had lied to her"; "The story is false, so far as I can discover"
- synonyms: find
- Find unexpectedly.
- usage: "the archeologists chanced upon an old tomb"; "she struck a goldmine"; "The hikers finally struck the main path to the lake"
- synonyms: fall upon, strike, come upon, light upon, chance upon, come across, chance on, happen upon, attain
- Make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret.
- usage: "The auction house would not disclose the price at which the van Gogh had sold"; "The actress won't reveal how old she is"; "bring out the truth"; "he broke the news to her"; "unwrap the evidence in the murder case"
- See for the first time; make a discovery.
- usage: "Who discovered the North Pole"
- Identify as in botany or biology, for example.
WordNet 3.0 © 2006 by Princeton University
| APA | WordNet. (2010). discover. Retrieved September 20, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/discover/definitions/1270667 |
| Chicago | WordNet. 2010. "discover" http://smartdefine.org/discover/definitions/1270667 (accessed September 20, 2026). |
| Harvard | WordNet 2010, discover, Smart Define, viewed 20 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/discover/definitions/1270667>. |
| MLA | WordNet. "discover" 23 October 2010. Web. 20 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/discover/definitions/1270667> |