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Definition
separate or distinct- We collected data from three discrete studies.
discrete = separate or distinct
- It's not clear which of the discrete medical specialties would be best at diagnosing her illness.
- What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive?James Joyce -- Ulysses
- When an intelligence agency intercepted a code containing sensitive data, cryptographers each worked on a discrete section of the code.Dan Brown -- The Da Vinci Code
- Each step was a discrete event, requiring conscious effort.Michael Lewis -- The Blind Side
- I would move off a discrete distance, out of sight, but within easy talking distance.Patrick Rothfuss -- The Name of the Wind
- It was dense and impenetrable in places while thin in others, and the slight breeze made discrete tendrils curve and twist, almost as if alive.Nicholas Sparks -- True Believer
- He says there are no such things as discrete objects which remain unchanged, set apart from the flow of time.Margaret Atwood -- Cat's Eye
- Crime, on the other hand, isn't a single discrete tiling, but a word used to describe an almost impossibly varied and complicated set of behaviors.Malcolm Gladwell -- The Tipping Point
- So perhaps you will permit an older comrade to lend you the words, since it often helps to have discrete words.Robert A. Heinlein -- Starship Troopers
- In every man there are two hemispheres of light and dark, two worlds discrete, two countries of his soul's adventure.Thomas Wolfe -- The Child by Tiger
- On the other, we have a great deal of ASW arrayed to locate her, and she will be heading towards one of only a few discrete locations.Tom Clancy -- The Hunt for Red October
- He winked at her discretely and then banged his head against the glass, this time hard enough to give himself a headache.Ted Dekker -- Black: The Birth of Evil
- She made him speak in lines that were difficult to sound-bite, discrete units of ideas, notions.Chang-rae Lee -- Native Speaker
- He looks across the room in this upper-level course and decides, then and there, that he'll sign up for discrete math-and stick with all the other classes.Ron Suskind -- A Hope in the Unseen
- And soon the screen had sixteen discrete images on it, all of them transmitting live feed.Dave Eggers -- The Circle
- I'm a discrete particle physicist.Dan Brown -- Angels & Demons
- The number of classrooms was one, they immediately discovered, which served all grades from first to seventh, the students separated in discrete clusters by age.David Baldacci -- Wish You Well
- A certifiable genius (who was definitely never a prodigy), Einstein had figured out that light can act, in a seeming paradox, both as a discrete particle and as a wave.John Green -- An Abundance of Katherines
- Every moment—every blink—is composed of a series of discrete moving parts, and every one of those parts offers an opportunity for intervention, for reform, and for correction.Malcolm Gladwell -- Blink
discrete = separate or distinct