secern
Verb
Verb Forms: secerned, secerning, secerns
- To distinguish or discern as separate; to secrete.
- mark as different
- To separate or set apart (someone or something from other persons or things).
- To separate (something from other things) in the mind; to discriminate, to distinguish.
- Synonym of secrete (“to extract or separate (a substance) from the blood, etc., for excretion or for the fulfilling of a physiological function”).
- Of a person or thing: to become separated from others.
- To secrete a substance.
Examples
- He tried to secern the valid words from the jumbled letters on his rack.
Origin / Etymology
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”).
Synonyms
differentiate, distinguish, secernate, separate, severalise, severalize, tell, tell apart, allocate, appropriate, assign, dedicate, designate, detach, discern, earmark, preselect, put aside, secern, secrete, sepose, sequester, set apart, set aside
Scrabble Score: 8
secern: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordsecern: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
secern: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary