discern

1. (transitive) To detect with the senses, especially with the eyes.Examples: "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."transitive

2. (transitive) To perceive, recognize, or comprehend with the mind; to descry.Examples: "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."Synonyms: kentransitive

3. (transitive) To distinguish something as being different from something else; to differentiate or discriminate.Examples: "He was too young to discern right from wrong."; "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."Synonyms: discriminatetransitive

4. (intransitive) To perceive differences.intransitive