Adjacent Words

Discerning definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DISCERNING, ppr.
1. Distinguishing; seeing; discovering; knowing; judging.
2. a. Having power to discern; capable of seeing, discriminating, knowing and judging; sharp-sighted; penetrating; acute; as a discerning man or mind.
DISCERNING, n. The act of discerning; discernment.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: having or revealing keen insight and good judgment; "a discerning critic"; "a discerning reader" [ant: undiscerning]
2: unobtrusively perceptive and sympathetic; "a discerning editor"; "a discreet silence" [syn: discerning, discreet]
3: quick to understand; "a kind and apprehensive friend"- Nathaniel Hawthorne [syn: apprehensive, discerning]
4: able to make or detect effects of great subtlety; sensitive; "discerning taste"; "a discerning eye for color"

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1589 showing insight and understanding ; discriminating <a discerning critic> • discerningly adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. having or showing good judgement or insight. Derivatives: discerningly adv.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Discerning Dis*cern"ing, a. Acute; shrewd; sagacious; sharp-sighted. --Macaulay.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Discern Dis*cern", v. t. [imp. & p. p. Discerned; p. pr. & vb. n. Discerning.] [F. discerner, L. discernere, discretum; dis- + cernere to separate, distinguish. See Certain, and cf. Discreet.] 1. 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). 2. 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.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe someone as discerning, you mean that they are able to judge which things of a particular kind are good and which are bad. ...tailor-made holidays to suit the more discerning traveller... ADJ [approval]

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Discriminating, knowing, sagacious, perspicacious, judicious, acute, intelligent, ingenious, clear-headed, clear-sighted, keen-sighted, quick-sighted, eagle-eyed, hawk-eyed, Argus-eyed.

Moby Thesaurus

acute, apperceptive, appercipient, argute, astute, cogent, farseeing, farsighted, foreseeing, foresighted, forethoughted, forethoughtful, gnostic, incisive, insightful, judicious, knowing, knowledgeable, longheaded, longsighted, penetrating, perceptive, percipient, perspicacious, perspicuous, piercing, provident, sagacious, sage, trenchant, understanding