discernible
English
WOTD – 2 December 2015
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle French discernable; spelling changed from -a- to -i- in the 17th century to conform to Latin discernibilis. By surface analysis, discern + -ible.
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /dɪˈsɝnɪbl̩/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /dɪˈsɜːnɪbl̩/
Audio (AU) (file) - Hyphenation: dis‧cern‧ible
Adjective
discernible (comparative more discernible, superlative most discernible)
- Possible to discern; detectable or derivable by use of the senses or the intellect.
- There is a discernible performance difference between a Porsche and a Civic.
- 1821, John Duncan, Duncan's Travels:
- To have demolished and rebuilt the walls, would have been a very costly expedient, and as the least of two evils, the painter's brush was resorted to; here and there however, above some of the windows, the black wreathings of the smoke are still discernible through the white covering.
- 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
- So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
- 2010, Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, “Introduction”, in Merchants of Doubt:
- In 1995, the IPCC declared that the human impact on climate was now “discernible.”
- 2021 December 1, Nigel Harris, “St Pancras and King's Cross: 1947”, in RAIL, number 945, page 36:
- This magnificent picture really stopped me in my tracks when I stumbled across it. I was drawn inexorably and immediately into the compelling detail discernible on this top-quality image.
Synonyms
- See discoverable
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
possible to discern
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Anagrams
Spanish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): (Spain) /disθeɾˈnible/ [d̪is.θeɾˈni.β̞le]
- IPA(key): (Latin America) /diseɾˈnible/ [d̪i.seɾˈni.β̞le]
- Rhymes: -ible
- Syllabification: dis‧cer‧ni‧ble
Further reading
- “discernible”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
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