All 6 Uses of
discern
in
Walden
- Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.†
Chpt 2
- The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things.†
Chpt 2
- But when the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written languages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures, then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity.†
Chpt 3
- …the right angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared…†
Chpt 9
- The water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be discerned at the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet.†
Chpt 9
- Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
Chpt 17 *discern = understand (something that is not obvious)
Definition:
-
(discern) to notice or understand something -- often something that is not obvious