discernment

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment.
2. n. Keenness of insight and judgment.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of discerning.
2. n. Acuteness of judgment; discrimination; a considerable power of perceiving differences in regard to matters of morals and conduct: as, the errors of youth often proceed from the want of discernment; also, the faculty of distinguishing; the exercise of this faculty.
3. n. Synonyms Penetration, Discrimination, Discernment, judgment, intelligence, acuteness, acumen, clear-sightedness, sagacity, shrewdness, insight. Penetration, or insight, goes to the heart of a subject, reads the inmost character, etc. Discrimination marks the differences in what it finds. Discernment combines both these ideas.

Wiktionary

1. n. The ability to distinguish; judgement.
2. n. Discrimination.
3. n. To distinguish between things.
4. n. To perceive differences that exist.
5. n. The condition of understanding.
6. n. Aesthetic discrimination; taste, appreciation.
7. n. Perceptiveness.
8. n. The ability to make wise judgements; sagacity.
9. n. Discretion in judging objectively.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of discerning.
2. n. 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.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the cognitive condition of someone who understands
2. n. delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values)
3. n. perception of that which is obscure
4. n. the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations
5. n. the trait of judging wisely and objectively