Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
verb
To decide or determine (a matter disputed or doubtful), with simple object, with infinitive or object clause, or intransitive.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To decree (something) by judicial sentence.
To decree by judicial sentence that something be done.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive, sometimes, transitive
Qualifier: Scots law
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To decree (something) by judicial sentence.
To decree a person etc. to be or to do something by judicial sentence. (in the phrase “to decern in”, obsolete) To mulct in by decree of court.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive, sometimes, transitive
Qualifier: Scots law
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To discern; to distinguish or separate by differences (things that differ, or one thing from another).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To discern; to distinguish or separate by differences (things that differ, or one thing from another).
To distinguish; to discriminate between.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive, obsolete, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To see distinctly (with the eyes or the mind); distinguish (an object or fact); discern.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
First attested in late Middle English circa 1425; from the French décerner, from the Latin dēcernō (“to decide, pronounce a decision”), from dē (“of, from, away from”) + cernō (“to separate, distinguish”), whence the English cern. In Old French, the forms of décerner were frequently conflated with those of descerner, discerner; the two verbs were not clearly distinguished until the 16th century; hence, in English also, decern is found with the sense discern.
