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Derive vs Discern - What's the difference?

derive | discern |

As verbs the difference between derive and discern

is that derive is while discern is to detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.

As a noun derive

is drift.

derive

English

Verb

(deriv)
  • To obtain or receive (something) from something else.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
  • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
  • (logic) To deduce (a conclusion) by reasoning.
  • (linguistics) To find the derivation of (a word or phrase).
  • (chemistry) To create (a compound) from another by means of a reaction.
  • To originate or stem (from).
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Robert M. Pringle, volume=100, issue=1, page=31, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= How to Be Manipulative , passage=As in much of biology, the most satisfying truths in ecology derive from manipulative experimentation. Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.}}
  • To turn the course of (water, etc.); to divert and distribute into subordinate channels.
  • * (and other bibliographic details) Holland
  • For fear it [water] choke up the pitsthey [the workman] derive it by other drains.

    Anagrams

    * ----

    discern

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1875 , author=Jules Verne , title=The Survivors of the Chancellor , chapter=1 citation , passage=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.}}
  • To perceive, recognize, or comprehend with the mind; to descry.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1842 , author=Charles Dickens , title=American Notes for General Circulation citation , passage=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.}}
  • To distinguish something as being different from something else; to differentiate.
  • * {{quote-book
  • , year=1651 , author=Thomas Hobbes , title=Leviathan citation , passage=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.}}
    He was too young to discern right from wrong.
  • To perceive differences.
  • Derived terms

    * discernible * discernment * indiscernible

    Anagrams

    * *