Search the Dictionary

To close the eyes upon a fault; to wink (at); to fail or forbear by intention to discover an act; to permit a proceeding, as if not aware of it; -- usually followed by at. To connive at what it does not approve. Jer. Taylor. In many of these, the directors were heartily concurring; in most of them, they were encouragin…

sentence or clause) so as to exhibit the structure, arrangement, or connection of, or to discover the sense; to explain the construction of; to interpret; to translate.

imes for fuel or other purposes. See Copse. The rate of coppice lands will fall, upon the discovery of coal mines. Locke.

The process by which miners seek to discover metallic lodes. It consist in sinking small pits through the superficial deposits to the solid rock, and then driving from one pit to another across the direction of the vein, in such manner as to cross all the veins between the two pits.

ore of the sea, or of a river. Each creek and cavern of the dangerous shore. Cowper. They discovered a certain creek, with a shore. Acts xxvii. 39.

or long creeple (as the name is in Devonshire), that hath a rattle at his tail that doth discover his age. Morton (1632).

A myth accounting for the discovery of arts and sciences or the advent of a higher civilization, as in the Prometheus myth.

To challenge; to provoke; to defy. Time, I dare thee to discover Such a youth and such a lover. Dryden.

To stamp; to detect; to discover. [R.] You are both deciphered, . . . For villains. Shak.

To discover; to show. [Poetic] I 'll deliver Myself your loyal servant. Shak.

The unraveling or discovery of a plot; the catastrophe, especially of a drama or a romance.

To detect; to discover; to find out. The motion . . . are to be deprehended by experience. Bacon.

That may be caught or discovered; apprehensible. [Obs.] Petty. -- Dep`re*hen"si*ble*ness, n. [Obs.]

A catching; discovery. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

To spy out or discover by the eye, as objects distant or obscure; to espy; to recognize; to discern; to discover. And the house of Joseph sent to descry Bethel. Judg. i. 23. Edmund, I think, is gone . . . to descry The strength o' the enemy. Shak. And now their way to earth they had descried. Milton.…

To uncover; to discover; to find out; to bring to light; as, to detect a crime or a criminal; to detect a mistake in an account. Plain good intention . . . is as easily discovered at the first view, as fraud is surely detected at last. Burke. Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment…

The act of detecting; the laying open what was concealed or hidden; discovery; as, the detection of a thief; the detection of fraud, forgery, or a plot. Such secrets of guilt are never from detection. D. Webster.

One who business it is so detect criminals or discover matters of secrecy.

name of; to assign to its true place in a system; as, to determine an unknown or a newly discovered plant or its name.

ntine analysis (Alg.), that branch of indeterminate analysis which has for its object the discovery of rational values that satisfy given equations containing squares or cubes; as, for example, to find values of x and y which make x2 + y2 an exact square.