discernment

discernment, discrimination, perception, penetration, insight, acumen are comparable when they denote keen intellectual vision. All imply power to see below the surface and to understand what is not evident to the average mind.

Discernment stresses accuracy (as in reading character or motives or in appreciation of art)

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she had not had the discernment to discover the caliber of this young favorite— Belloc

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Discrimination emphasizes the power to distinguish and select the excellent, the appropriate, or the true

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there was a time when schools attempted ... to cultivate discrimination and to furnish the material on which selection can be founded— Grandgent

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nobody should reproach them for reading indiscriminately. Only by so doing can they learn discrimination— Times Lit. Sup.

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Perception implies quick discernment and delicate feeling

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of a temperament to feel keenly the presence of subtleties; a man of clumsier perceptions would not have felt as he did— George Eliot

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persecutors were ordinary, reasonably well-intentioned people lacking in keen perception— Sykes

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Penetration implies a searching mind and power to enter deeply into something beyond the reach of the senses

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it did not require any great penetration to discover that what they wished was that their letters should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride— De Quincey

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good little novels, full of Gallic irony and penetration— Time

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Insight emphasizes depth of discernment or of sympathetic understanding

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throughout the years he has used . . . techniques or insights provided by abstract art, to express better his statements about men and the world— Current Biog.

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Acumen suggests characteristic penetration and keenness and soundness of judgment

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a paradox which your natural acumen, sharpened by habits of logical attention, will enable you to reconcile in a moment— Cowper

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Analogous words: intuition, understanding, *reason: perspicaciousness or perspicacity, sagaciousness or sagacity, shrewdness, astuteness (see corresponding adjectives at SHREWD)

Contrasted words: stupidity, slowness, dullness, density, crassness (see corresponding adjectives at STUPID): blindness (see corresponding adjective BLIND)