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.

Verb

To make signal or eminent; to render distinguished from what is common.

* Burke

It is this passion which drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing themselves.

To communicate with by means of a signal.

a ship signalizes its consort

(humorous, or, nonstandard) To make something noticeable, different, remarkable or conspicuous, especially by gesticulation.

(nonstandard) To signal; to indicate the existence, presence, or fact of, by a signal.

to signalize the arrival of a steamer

* Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

And yet... looking here at this bottle which by its number signalized the day when Colonel Freeleigh had stumbled and fallen six feet into the earth, Douglas could not find so much as a gram of dark sediment

(nonstandard) To install a traffic signal at an intersection that is currently regulated by stop signs.