How to Use discern in a Sentence

discern

verb
  • The reasons behind this sudden change are difficult to discern.
  • The reason for the price jumps is easy to discern.
    — Jeff John Roberts, Fortune, 2 Oct. 2025
  • The sources of the Gulf states’ anger are not hard to discern.
    — Jordan Michael Smith, The New Republic, 11 Mar. 2022
  • Our job is trying to discern what is a true threat and what isn’t.
    — oregonlive, 14 Jan. 2021
  • Musk’s motives are not hard to discern.
    — Damon Beres, The Atlantic, 5 Nov. 2025
  • Save the good wine for more discerning guests and put out the cheap whiskey.
    — Judith Martin, Sun Sentinel, 20 Feb. 2026
  • This one rose to near the top of my list — and my very discerning teenage son’s.
    — Jared Kaufman, Twin Cities, 22 Oct. 2025
  • That's going to be sort of easy to discern after all this is over.
    — NBC News, 12 June 2022
  • My discerning eyes also spot some flaws in the bokeh.
    — PC Magazine, 12 Oct. 2025
  • My job is about trying to be very discerning about that.
    — Zac Ntim, Deadline, 1 Apr. 2026
  • Of course, the layperson cannot always discern much from the soil.
    — Elizabeth Waddington, Treehugger, 20 Feb. 2023
  • What was the process of discerning what made the most sense to tell your story?
    — Steven J. Horowitz, Variety, 17 Sep. 2024
  • This is where locals take their most discerning out-of-town friends.
    — Rai Mincey, Forbes.com, 8 Sep. 2025
  • But in flashes, the discerning eye could see it.
    — Alex Zietlow, Charlotte Observer, 9 Oct. 2025
  • For now, investors haven’t seemed to be so discerning.
    — Bernard Goyder, Fortune, 5 Feb. 2026
  • Being able to discern if your decision comes from a place of burnout is key.
    — Robin Ryan, Forbes, 29 June 2021
  • The reason for a recent spike in theft at grocery stores is not hard to discern.
    — Ann Larson, The New Republic, 5 Mar. 2021
  • The contours of this change are still a bit difficult to discern.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2020
  • The initial point of contact was hard to discern, even on replay.
    — CBS News, 2 May 2018
  • Thoreau, who could discern worlds in a grain of sand, had no desire to travel.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 4 Nov. 2021
  • Too grainy to discern the marks or even say for sure the photos were of Jennifer.
    — Megan O’Matz, ProPublica, 16 Sep. 2021
  • With the help of a rod, Manqui can discern what the earth beneath her holds.
    — Longreads, 8 Apr. 2021
  • At first glance, the forum’s whole deal can be difficult to discern.
    — Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 1 July 2021
  • Throughout the film, Neo learns to discern what’s real and what’s not.
    — Manuel Betancourt, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2024
  • Close up, the markings on the hillside were hard to discern, and even harder to make sense of.
    — Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 12 May 2021
  • Yet the data may not be precise enough to discern whether two people were at least 6 feet apart.
    — Allie Funk, Wired, 9 Apr. 2020
  • The stance of the British Museum is hard to discern.
    — James Romm, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026
  • By the end of the play, divine providence is much harder to discern.
    — The Economist, 12 July 2018
  • His first few starts in High-A Aberdeen make that hard to discern.
    — Sam Cohn, Baltimore Sun, 1 May 2024
  • As with any disease, the numbers need to decline for at least a week to discern any real trend.
    — Phil Galewitz, azcentral, 17 Apr. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'discern.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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