different between discriminate vs descry

English

Etymology

From Latin discriminatus, past participle of discriminare (“to divide, separate, distinguish”), from discrimen (“a space between, division, separation, distinction”), from discerno (“to divide, separate, distinguish, discern”); see discern, discreet, discrete. Compare crime.

Pronunciation

• (verb) IPA^(key): /d?s?k??m?ne?t/
• (adjective) IPA^(key): /d?s?k??m?n?t/

Verb

discriminate (third-person singular simple present discriminates, present participle discriminating, simple past and past participle discriminated)

1. (intransitive) To make distinctions.

2. (intransitive, construed with against) To make decisions based on prejudice.

3. (transitive) To set apart as being different; to mark as different; to separate from another by discerning differences; to distinguish.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Cowper to this entry?)

Usage notes

Due to the strong pejorative connotations of sense of “decide based on prejudice”, care should be taken in using the term in the sense “distinguish, make distinctions”, and this sense is primarily used in formal discourse; synonyms are generally used instead.

Synonyms

• (make distinctions): distinguish, differentiate; see also Thesaurus:tell apart
• (make decisions based on prejudice): disfavor

Antonyms

• (make decisions based on prejudice): favor

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

discriminate (comparative more discriminate, superlative most discriminate)

1. Having the difference marked; distinguished by certain tokens.

   • Nevertheless it is certain, that oisters, and cockles, and mussels, which move not, have no discriminate sex

Further reading

• discriminate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• discriminate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Translations

Italian

Verb

discriminate

1. second-person plural present indicative of discriminare
2. second-person plural imperative of discriminare
3. feminine plural of discriminato

Anagrams

• dimenticarsi

Latin

Verb

discr?min?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of discr?min?

English

Etymology

From Middle English descrien, descryen, from Old French descrier (“to proclaim, announce, cry”), from des- + crier (“shout, cry”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??sk?a?/
• Rhymes: -a?

Verb

descry (third-person singular simple present descries, present participle descrying, simple past and past participle descried) (literary)

1. (transitive) To see.
2. (transitive) To discover (a distant or obscure object) by the eye; to espy; to discern or detect.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act IV, Scene 5,^[2]

     Edmund, I think, is gone,

     In pity of his misery, to dispatch

     His nighted life; moreover to descry

     The strength o’ th’ enemy.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 10, lines 325-326,^[3]

     And now thir way to Earth they had descri’d,

     To Paradise first tending, […]

   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, 3rd edition, p. 127,^[4]

     When I had pass’d the Vale where my Bower stood as above, I came within View of the Sea, to the West, and it being a very clear Day, I fairly descry’d Land—whether an Island or a Continent, I could not tell; but it lay very high, extending from the West to the W.S.W. at a very great Distance;

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity, New York: Macmillan, Chapter 4, p. 47,^[5]

     Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days’ cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.

3. (transitive) To discover: to disclose; to reveal.
   • 1670, John Milton, The History of Britain, London: James Allestry, Book 2, p. 87,^[6]

     His Body was found almost naked in the field, for his Purple Robe he had thrown aside, lest it should descry him, unwilling to be found.

Translations

Further reading

• descry in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• descry in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• descry at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “descry”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Anagrams

• cyders