DISCERNMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does discernment mean? 

• DISCERNMENT (noun)
  The noun DISCERNMENT has 5 senses:

1. the cognitive condition of someone who understands

2. delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values)

3. perception of that which is obscure

4. the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations

5. the trait of judging wisely and objectively

  Familiarity information: DISCERNMENT used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISCERNMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The cognitive condition of someone who understands

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

apprehension; discernment; savvy; understanding

Context example:

he has virtually no understanding of social cause and effect

Hypernyms ("discernment" is a kind of...):

knowing (a clear and certain mental apprehension)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "discernment"):

comprehension (an ability to understand the meaning or importance of something (or the knowledge acquired as a result))

self-knowledge (an understanding of yourself and your goals and abilities)

smattering (a slight or superficial understanding of a subject)

appreciation; grasp; hold (understanding of the nature or meaning or quality or magnitude of something)

grasping (understanding with difficulty)

hindsight (understanding the nature of an event after it has happened)

brainstorm; brainwave; insight (the clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation)

realisation; realization; recognition (coming to understand something clearly and distinctly)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

appreciation; discernment; perceptiveness; taste

Context example:

to ask at that particular time was the ultimate in bad taste

Hypernyms ("discernment" is a kind of...):

discrimination; secernment (the cognitive process whereby two or more stimuli are distinguished)

Attribute:

tasteful (having or showing or conforming to good taste)

tasteless (lacking aesthetic or social taste)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "discernment"):

delicacy; discretion (refined taste; tact)

culture (the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group)

style; trend; vogue (the popular taste at a given time)

connoisseurship; vertu; virtu (love of or taste for fine objects of art)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Perception of that which is obscure

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

discernment; perceptiveness

Hypernyms ("discernment" is a kind of...):

perception (knowledge gained by perceiving)

Derivation:

discern (detect with the senses)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

discernment; judgement; judgment; sagaciousness; sagacity

Hypernyms ("discernment" is a kind of...):

sapience; wisdom (ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "discernment"):

eye (good discernment (either visually or as if visually))

common sense; good sense; gumption; horse sense; mother wit; sense (sound practical judgment)

judiciousness (good judgment)

circumspection; discreetness; discretion; prudence (knowing how to avoid embarrassment or distress)

indiscreetness; injudiciousness (lacking good judgment)

Sense 5

Meaning:

The trait of judging wisely and objectively

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

discernment; discretion

Context example:

a man of discernment

Hypernyms ("discernment" is a kind of...):

wisdom; wiseness (the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "discernment"):

prudence (discretion in practical affairs)

caution; circumspection (the trait of being circumspect and prudent)

 Context examples 

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

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A clot detection method that uses a manual means (visual discernment) to detect the presence and/or quantify the formation of a thrombus in a specimen.

(Manual Clot Detection, NCI Thesaurus)

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

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I do assure you that you owe it entirely, at least almost entirely, to your own merit, and Colonel Brandon's discernment of it.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Perhaps they may want observation, discernment, judgment, fire, genius, and wit.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

How despicably I have acted! she cried; I, who have prided myself on my discernment!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part of understanding than her young friend.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Thus, the white participants’ discernment was more accurate—in terms of correctly identifying smiles as genuine or false—when the images they were shown were of other white people, compared to when they were shown images of black people.

(White people’s perceptions of the emotions on black people’s faces are less accurate than their perceptions among other white people, University of Granada)

I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She has great discernment.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)