Verb

(decid)

To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle.

The election will be decided on foreign policies.

We must decide our next move.

Her last-minute goal decided the game.

* Shakespeare

The quarrel toucheth none but us alone; / Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.

To make a judgment, especially after deliberation.

You must decide between good and evil.

I have decided that it is healthier to walk to work.

* Bible, 1 Kings xx. 40

So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it.

To cause someone to come to a decision.

* 1920 , , "The Adventure of the Three Gables" (Norton edition, 2005, p. 1537),

It decides me to look into the matter, for if it is worth anyone's while to take so much trouble, there must be something in it.

(obsolete) To cut off; to separate.

* Fuller

Our seat denies us traffic here; / The sea, too near, decides us from the rest.

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.