Foresee vs Discern - What's the difference?
foresee | discern |
To anticipate; to predict.
* 1838 , Charles Dickens, The Lamplighter
* Bible, Proverbs xxii. 3
(obsolete) To provide.
* Francis Bacon
To detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.
* {{quote-book
, year=1875
, author=Jules Verne
, title=The Survivors of the Chancellor
, chapter=1
To perceive, recognize, or comprehend with the mind; to descry.
* {{quote-book
, year=1842
, author=Charles Dickens
, title=American Notes for General Circulation
To distinguish something as being different from something else; to differentiate.
* {{quote-book
, year=1651
, author=Thomas Hobbes
, title=Leviathan
To perceive differences.
As verbs the difference between foresee and discern
is that foresee is to anticipate; to predict while discern is to detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.foresee
English
Verb
- "I foresee in this," he says, "the breaking up of our profession."
- A prudent man foreseeth the evil.
- Great shoals of people, which go on to populate, without foreseeing means of life.
See also
* forsee English irregular verbsdiscern
English
Verb
(en verb)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.}}
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.}}
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.