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
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verb
To separate or set apart (someone or something from other persons or things).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, literary, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: allocate, appropriate, shelve, assign, dedicate, detach, designate, earmark, preselect, put aside, secern, secernate, separate, sepose, sequester, set apart, set aside
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To separate (something from other things) in the mind; to discriminate, to distinguish.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: broadly, literary, transitive
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: differentiate, discern
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Synonym of secrete (“to extract or separate (a substance) from the blood, etc., for excretion or for the fulfilling of a physiological function”).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, literary, transitive
Topics: medicine, physiology, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: secrete
Antonyms: none provided
verb
Of a person or thing: to become separated from others.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive, literary
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To secrete a substance.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: intransitive, literary, rare
Topics: medicine, physiology, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
mark as different
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Synonyms: distinguish, separate, differentiate, secernate, severalize, severalise, tell, tell apart
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: identify, place
Narrower terms: know, discriminate, know apart, label, sex, individualize, individualise, contrast, severalize, severalise, contradistinguish, decouple, dissociate, demarcate, separate, single out, stratify
History
PIE word *swé Learned borrowing from Latin sēcernere, the present active infinitive of sēcernō (“to put apart, divide, separate, sever, sunder; (figuratively) to disjoin, dissociate, part; to discern, distinguish; to exclude, pull aside, set aside, reject”), from sē- (prefix meaning ‘apart; aside; away’) + cernō (“to divide, separate; to distinguish, sift; to perceive, see; to comprehend, discern, regard, understand; to decide”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *krey- (“to divide, separate, sift”)). Senses 1.3 and 2.2 (“synonym of secrete”) derive from the use of the Latin word sēcernere to translate Ancient Greek ἀποκρίνειν (apokrínein), the active infinitive participle of ἀποκρίνω (apokrínō, “to set apart, separate; to choose; to reject on inquiry; to answer, reply”).
Across languages
2 source translations are retained for this English entry.
