DISCERNING in sample sentences

She followed where the water might be dripping, and her discerning eye skidded to a stop on the floor near the couch.

Amy Tan -- The Bonesetter’s Daughter

He turns, eyes narrowing into discerning slits.

Ellen Hopkins -- Glass

Do we not say every day, ’Are not all the mighty as naught before Thee, the men of renown as though they had not been, the wise as if without knowledge, and the men of understanding as if without discernment’?

Chaim Potok -- The Chosen

Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering;

William Shakespeare -- King Lear

...heated garages, marble bathrooms, balconies, and high-end appliances, all for the discerning, affluent professional.

Sarah Dessen -- The Truth About Forever

People who remarked on his looks did so belatedly, in a tone of surprise, as if they were congratulating themselves on their powers of discernment.

Anne Tayler -- A Spool of Blue Thread

Show more again

The trick was to address yourself to the projection, the fantasy self—the connoisseur, the discerning bon vivant—as opposed to the insecure person actually standing in front of you.

Donna Tartt -- The Goldfinch

She dropped the mattress, though not before discerning that there was nothing under it.

Cassandra Clare -- City of Lost Souls

Stengel is a great artist, but there are so few discerning people to see it.

Ayn Rand -- The Fountainhead

But animals are incapable of such discernment.

Yann Martel -- Life of Pi

The Teacher had been convinced that once he found the tomb, discerning the missing orb would be easy.

Dan Brown -- The Da Vinci Code

’Good morning, sir,’ the chaplain replied, discerning wisely that Colonel Korn expected nothing more in the way of a response.

Joseph Heller -- Catch-22

Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment.

Herman Melville -- Moby Dick

For the patient publisher, Anne Freedgood gave the manuscript a discerning reading.

Homer -- The Odyssey

Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his total ignorance; and the conversation took a more general turn.

Mary Shelley -- Frankenstein

He answered me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine’s discernment as to be certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily.

Jane Austen -- Pride and Prejudice

—So easily pleased—so little discerning;—what signified her praise?

Jane Austen -- Emma

From this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts.

Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

Not even Helios could glimpse us through, it, and his hot ray is finest at discerning.

Homer -- The Iliad

But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don’t perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself.

Emily Bronte -- Wuthering Heights

Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Young Goodman Brown

The idea did not originate in my own discernment, I am bound to confess, but in a speech of Rosa Dartle’s.

Charles Dickens -- David Copperfield

Then he put a forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant meat.

James Joyce -- Ulysses

Oh, he laughed, and in that singular manner so peculiar to himself—half-malicious, half-ferocious; he almost immediately got up and took his leave; then, for the first time, I observed the agitation of my grandfather, and I must tell you, Maximilian, that I am the only person capable of discerning emotion in his paralyzed frame.

Alexandre Dumas -- The Count of Monte Cristo

I hope she has discernment enough to find in me something besides the blagueur.

Kate Chopin -- The Awakening

Eighteen might look at thirty-four through a rising mist of adolescence; but twenty-two would see thirty-eight with discerning clarity.

F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Tender is the Night

He ceased, discerning Adam with such joy Surcharged, as had like grief been dewed in tears, Without the vent of words; which these he breathed.

John Milton -- Paradise Lost

The fine lawn surrounding the Clutter house was also newly green, and trespassers upon it, women anxious to have a closer look at the uninhabited home, crept across the grass and peered through the windows as though hopeful but fearful of discerning, in the gloom beyond the pleasant flower-print curtains, grim apparitions.

Truman Capote -- In Cold Blood

"What is she vexed with him about?" thought Kitty, discerning that Anna had intentionally not responded to Vronsky’s bow.

Leo Tolstoy -- Anna Karenina

But, at heart and not for nothing, as the late chance encounter may indicate to the discerning, down on him, secretly down on him, he assuredly was.

Herman Melville -- Billy Budd

What I should have said was that there was no serious dispute among professionals of quality who had any discernment in such matters.

Kazuo Ishiguro -- The Remains of the Day

She walked along the walls, a set of pale green eyes, discerning, alert, secretive.

Don DeLillo -- White Noise

This discerning silent witch had not done thinking of these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her start.

Thomas Hardy -- The Mayor of Casterbridge

It would be an insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so.

Charles Dickens -- Bleak House

In 1909, the duke of Abruzzi, one of the greatest climbers of his day, and perhaps his era’s most discerning connoisseur of precipitous landscapes, led an Italian expedition up the Baltoro for an unsuccessful attempt at K2.

Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin -- Three Cups of Tea

And had he had that discerning acuteness which many Europeans have, he would certainly have perceived my coldness and indifference, and also have been very much concerned upon that account; as I was now more circumspect, I had much lessened my kindness and familiarity with him, and while this jealousy continued, I used that artful way (now to much in fashion, the occasion of strife and dissention) of pumping him daily thereby to discover whether he was deceitful in his thoughts and…

Daniel Defoe -- Robinson Crusoe

What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid.

Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The House of the Seven Gables

His tone, his expressions, his choice of subject, his knowing where to stop; it was all the operation of a sensible, discerning mind.

Jane Austen -- Persuasion

Mrs. Norris accepted the compliment, and admired the nice discernment of character which could so well distinguish merit.

Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park

At moments he stood still by an archway, like one watching a figure walk out; then he would look at a window like one discerning a familiar face behind it.

Thomas Hardy -- Jude the Obscure

No touch of sin would linger upon the hands with which he would elevate and break the host; no touch of sin would linger on his lips in prayer to make him eat and drink damnation to himself not discerning the body of the Lord.

James Joyce -- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Tom had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers were not at all deficient.

George Eliot -- The Mill on the Floss

So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.

Lucy Maud Montgomery -- Anne Of Green Gables

They were dream-filled, but discerning, too, assessing—the eyes of an entrepreneur.

Dave Eggers -- Zeitoun

She instantly replied sarcastically— "On the contrary, my opinion of you is so low, that I see in your abuse the praise of discerning people!"

Thomas Hardy -- Far from the Madding Crowd

’She is beyond question a wise and a discerning woman.

Rudyard Kipling -- Kim