Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To catch sight of (something difficult to discern). See Synonyms at see1.
- v. To discover by careful observation or scrutiny; detect: descried a message of hope in her words.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To proclaim; announce; make known.
- To detect; find out; discover (anything concealed).
- To spy out; explore; examine by observation.
- To discover by vision; get a sight of; make out by looking: as, the lookout descried land.
- n. Discovery; something discovered.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To spy out or discover by the eye, as objects distant or obscure; to espy; to recognize; to discern; to discover.
- v. rare To discover; to disclose; to reveal.
- n. obsolete Discovery or view, as of an army seen at a distance.
WordNet 3.0
- v. catch sight of
Etymologies
- From Old French descrier ("to proclaim, announce, cry"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English descrien, from Old French descrier, to call, cry out; see decry. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Shakespeare 'descry' also occurs in the sense of 'to reconnoitre.”
“From my window I could descry, at no great distance, a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his cabbages.”
“Barton a super-woman -- or at least they were personalities so designated by the cub book-reviewers, flat-floor men and women, and scholastically emasculated critics, who from across the dreary levels of their living can descry no glorious humans over-topping their horizons.”
“By the glimmer of light lent me, I can but guess greatness and descry vagueness.”
“If China, for example, tried a defendant after doing all this and then found them guilty and executed them, would we not descry this as another example of tyranny?”
“Then we head for high ground, and we all descry the steep walls to map a route upward.”
The Huffington Post: Richard Bangs: Following Brad and Angelina to Namibia, Part I
“He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly.”
“I can understand why people spend entire lifetimes playing the Shakespeare game, that is trying to descry the human being behind the scintillant words: the densest exegesis is a passionate argument, to another Shakespeare lover, with the ghostly form on the other side of the curtain of time.”
“For, be it known in advance, Lee Barton was a super-man and Ida Barton a super-woman -- or at least the were personalities so designated by the cub book reviewers, flat-floor men and women, and scholastically emasculated critics, who, from across the dreary levels of their living, can descry no glorious humans overtopping their horizons.”
“As I went in, I could descry Wisting a little way off kneeling on the ground, and engaged in the manufacture of cutlets.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘descry’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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Familiar
Just a list of words
fulminate, unctuous, malediction, lumpenproletariat, descry, surfeit, sententious, supernumerary, unabashed, picayune, obliterate, decry and 112 more...
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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Naresh_Special
portent, organically, malicious, sham, olfactory, vertebrates, protuberance, sensilla, flagitious, pleonastic, exiguous, wayward and 102 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Used
halcyon, ineluctable, inspissated, incarnadine, askance, demur, saltation, requisite, effusive, specious, liminality, indomitable and 114 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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rare words that might be useful
transmogrify, fastidiousness, interiority, indecorous, procrustean, vociferous, descry, solecism, apogee, progeny, envisage, anteroom and 3 more...
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to memorize
words i need to memorize
aberrant, abscond, advocate, aggrandize, amalgamate, ambiguous, ambrosial, anomalous, antediluvian, antipathy, arbitrate, assuage and 163 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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catinthehat345's List
compere, reticle, colophon, miasma, eldritch, raconteur, plectrum, poltroon, vestibular, pastiche, cravat, acumen and 179 more...
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Shadowkeir's list
This list, the one shown below this very message, is a collection of words that you cannot begin to fathom how much I adore. The list will also feature atithesis and contrasting words such as the t...
wishful, anticlimactic, forte, monchromatic, septic, wonderous, isoclinal, deformed, disintergrate, favourite, laughable, awe-inspiring and 250 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for descry.
jword to discover by observation; to catch sight of Mar 23, 2007