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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; as, the errors of youth often proceed from the want of discernment.

To alter the natural hue or color of; to change to a different color; to stain; to tinge; as, a drop of wine will discolor water; silver is discolored by sea water.

To disarrange; to interfere with; to disturb; to disorder; to unsettle; to break up. Or discomposed the headdress of a prude. Pope.

Discordant; at variance; disagreeing; contrary; different. The Egyptians were . . . the most oddly discrepant from the rest in their manner of worship. Cudworth.

under Concrete, a. -- Discrete proportion, proportion where the ratio of the means is different from that of either couplet; as, 3:6::8:16, 3 bearing the same proportion to 6 as 8 does to 16. But 3 is not to 6 as 6 to 8. It is thus opposed to continued or continual proportion; as, 3:6::12:24. -- Discrete quantity, th…

The eliminant of the n partial differentials of any homogenous function of n variables. See Eliminant.

Having the difference marked; distinguished by certain tokens. Bacon.

Marking a difference; distinguishing. -- Dis*crim"i*na`ting*ly, adv. And finds with keen discriminating sight, Black's not so black; -- nor white so very white. Canning.

The act of discriminating, distinguishing, or noting and marking differences. To make an anxious discrimination between the miracle absolute and providential. Trench.

Marking a difference; distinguishing; distinctive; characteristic. That peculiar and discriminative form of life. Johnson.

. Macaulay. Discussion of a problem or an equation (Math.), the operation of assigning different reasonable values to the arbitrary quantities and interpreting the result. Math. Dict.

Want of harmony; discord; incongruity. [R.] A disharmony in the different impulses that constitute it [our nature]. Coleridge.

Indifference to profit; want of regard to private advantage; disinterestedness. [Obs.] Johnson.

Want or difference of belief; disbelief. [Obs.] Bp. Reynolds.

Inequality; difference in age, rank, condition, or excellence; dissimilitude; -- followed by between, in, of, as to, etc.; as, disparity in, or of, years; a disparity as to color. The disparity between God and his intelligent creatures. I. Taylor. The disparity of numbers was not such as ought to cause any uneasiness.…

The difference between the thickness of the metal at the mouth and at the breech of a piece of ordnance. On account of the dispart, the line of aim or line of metal, which is in a plane passing through the axis of the gun, always makes a small angle with the axis. Eng. Cys.

riarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations. Neither are God's methods or intentions different in his dispensations to each private man. Rogers.

To scatter abroad; to drive to different parts; to distribute; to diffuse; to spread; as, the Jews are dispersed among all nations. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge. Prov. xv. 7. Two lions, in the still, dark night, A herd of beeves disperse. Cowper.

The separation of light into its different colored rays, arising from their different refrangibilities. Dispersion of the optic axes (Crystallog.), the separation of the optic axes in biaxial crystals, due to the fact that the axial angle has different values for the different colors of the spectrum.…

disperse. Dispersive power (Opt.), the relative effect of a material in separating the different rays of light by refraction, as when the substance is formed into a prism. -- Dis*pers"ive*ness, n.