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.

Foresee vs Discern - What's the difference?

foresee | discern |

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

  • To anticipate; to predict.
  • * 1838 , Charles Dickens, The Lamplighter
  • "I foresee in this," he says, "the breaking up of our profession."
  • * Bible, Proverbs xxii. 3
  • A prudent man foreseeth the evil.
  • (obsolete) To provide.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Great shoals of people, which go on to populate, without foreseeing means of life.

    See also

    * forsee English irregular verbs

    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

    * *