What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Discern vs Discover - What's the difference?

discern | discover |

As verbs the difference between discern and discover

is that discern is to detect with the senses, especially with the eyes while discover is to remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).

As a proper noun Discover is

Discover Card, a brand of credit card.

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

    * *

    discover

    English

    Alternative forms

    * discovre (obsolete)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To remove the cover from; to uncover (a head, building etc.).
  • To expose, uncover.
  • :
  • (chess) To create by moving a piece out of another piece's line of attack.
  • :
  • (archaic) To reveal (information); to divulge, make known.
  • :
  • *Shakespeare
  • *:Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover / The several caskets to this noble prince.
  • *Francis Bacon
  • *:Prosperity doth best discover' vice; but adversity doth best ' discover virtue.
  • (obsolete) To reconnoitre, explore (an area).
  • *, Bk.V, ch.ix:
  • *:they seyde the same, and were aggreed that Sir Clegis, Sir Claryon, and Sir Clement the noble, that they sholde dyscover the woodys, bothe the dalys and the downys.
  • To find or learn something for the first time.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=All this has led to an explosion of protest across China, including among a middle class that has discovered nimbyism.}}
  • (obsolete) To manifest without design; to show; to exhibit.
  • *C. J. Smith
  • *:The youth discovered a taste for sculpture.
  • *1806 , Alexander Hunter, Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ , p.125:
  • *:The English Cooks keep all their Spices in separate boxes, but the French Cooks make a spicey mixture that does not discover a predominancy of any one of the spices over the others.
  • Synonyms

    * (expose something previously covered) expose, reveal, uncover * (find something for the first time) come across, find

    Antonyms

    * (expose something previously covered) conceal, cover, cover up, hide

    Derived terms

    * discovery * discovered attack * discovered check

    See also

    * invent * detect * find * stumble upon