Discernment

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Discernment \Dis*cern"ment\, n. [Cf. F. discernement.]
     1. The act of discerning.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The power or faculty of the mind by which it distinguishes
        one thing from another; power of viewing differences in


        objects, and their relations and tendencies; penetrative
        and discriminate mental vision; acuteness; sagacity;
        insight; as, the errors of youth often proceed from the
        want of discernment.
  
     Syn: Judgment; acuteness; discrimination; penetration;
          sagacity; insight. -- {Discernment}, {Penetration},
          {Discrimination}. Discernment is keenness and accuracy
          of mental vision; penetration is the power of seeing
          deeply into a subject in spite of everything that
          intercepts the view; discrimination is a capacity of
          tracing out minute distinctions and the nicest shades of
          thought. A discerning man is not easily misled; one of a
          penetrating mind sees a multitude of things which escape
          others; a discriminating judgment detects the slightest
          differences.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  discernment
       n 1: the cognitive condition of someone who understands; "he has
            virtually no understanding of social cause and effect"
            [syn: {understanding}, {apprehension}, {savvy}]
       2: delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values);
          "arrogance and lack of taste contributed to his rapid
          success"; "to ask at that particular time was the ultimate
          in bad taste" [syn: {taste}, {appreciation}, {perceptiveness}]
       3: perception of that which is obscure [syn: {perceptiveness}]
       4: ability to make good judgments [syn: {sagacity}, {sagaciousness},
           {judgment}, {judgement}]
       5: the trait of judging wisely and objectively; "a man of
          discernment" [syn: {discretion}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  72 Moby Thesaurus words for "discernment":
     acuity, acumen, acuteness, apperception, astuteness, clear sight,
     cogency, color vision, cone vision, critical discernment,
     day vision, daylight vision, discrimination, eye, eye-mindedness,
     eyesight, farseeingness, farsight, farsightedness, field of view,
     field of vision, flair, foresight, foresightedness, horizon,
     incisiveness, insight, intuition, judgment, keen sight, keenness,
     ken, longheadedness, longsightedness, night vision, penetration,
     perception, perceptiveness, percipience, peripheral field,
     peripheral vision, perspicaciousness, perspicacity, perspicuity,
     perspicuousness, photopia, power of sight, providence, purview,
     quick sight, range, reason, rod vision, sagaciousness, sagacity,
     scope, scotopia, seeing, sense of sight, sensibility, shrewdness,
     sight, sightedness, sweep, trenchancy, twilight vision,
     unobstructed vision, vision, visual acuity, visual field,
     visual sense, wit