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Discernible   /dɪsˈərnəbəl/   Listen
Discernible

adjective
1.
Perceptible by the senses or intellect.  Synonym: discernable.  "The newspaper reports no discernible progress in the negotiations" , "The skyline is easily discernible even at a distance of several miles"
2.
Capable of being perceived clearly.
3.
Capable of being seen or noticed.  Synonyms: evident, observable.  "A clearly evident erasure in the manuscript" , "An observable change in behavior"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Discernible" Quotes from Famous Books



... like minute pieces of metal or grains of gravel. It was within Don Caesar's experience that gold specimens were often sent in that manner. It was in a state of singular preservation, except the address, which, being written in pencil, was scarcely discernible, and even when deciphered appeared to be incoherent and unfinished. The unknown correspondent had written "dear Mary," and then "Mrs. Mary Slinn," with an unintelligible scrawl following for the direction. If Don Caesar's mind had not been lately preoccupied with the name of the editor, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte

... nothing luminous, transparent, or delicate about dust. Dust would not remain in the atmosphere for months, it would settle in a very short time, and if thick enough in the atmosphere to obstruct the light of the sun it would be visible, discernible, to the eye, and manifest on the face of nature. Years ago, before the age of the weather map, we might have thought that the atmosphere followed the surface of the earth like the water on a grindstone, but it does not. As already seen, the wind is from the area of high barometer to that of low, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... larger works was still unsuspected by him. The two middle movements, a Menuetto and a Larghetto—although in the latter the self-imposed fetters of the 5-4 time prevent the composer from feeling quite at his ease—are more attractive than the rest. In them are discernible an approach to freedom and something like a breath of life, whereas in the first and the last movement there is almost nothing but painful labour and dull monotony. The most curious thing, however, about this work is the lumbering passage-writing of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... affectation of consequence, and a certain air of authority joined to a demi-official royal livery, which always distinguishes the corps politique, and is equally shared by their highly plumed female partners. The opposition are equally discernible by outward and visible signs, such as an assumed nonchalance, or apparent independence of carriage, that but ill suits the ambitious views of the wearer, and sits as uneasily upon them as their measures would do upon the shoulders of the nation. Added to which, you will never ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... figures a special Misfortune, Unhappiness, or Hurt to one's life, by no means avoidable, and perhaps not discernible at once. Influenced by the King of its like suit, sudden: by the Queen, long continuing ere complete; by the Knave, Fortune through Persons; by the ten, through concurrence of sundry events. By any other spade, sudden. By a Heart, Ill-Fortune in the Affection. ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson

... suddenly out upon him, and a scene met his view which arrested his footsteps at once, and, raining as it was, he leaned back against the fence and gazed at the picture before him. The shutters were thrown open, and through the window was plainly discernible the form of Dora Deane, seated at a table on which lay a book which she seemed to be reading. There was nothing elegant about her dress, nor did Howard Hastings think of this; his mind was intent upon her who had been so cruelly wronged, and whose young ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressing-gown, rather feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on his head. He looked at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression, but there was a shade of something like dread discernible in it. He had become terribly preoccupied since the trial; sometimes he would be silent for half an hour together, and seemed to be pondering something heavily and painfully, oblivious of everything about him. If he roused ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... beer to solace the tedium of the quarter of an hour that yet intervened before the Bermondsey bird and its Walworth antagonist were to be "on the nail;" and ever and anon fresh Corydons kept dropping in, until some fifty or sixty had assembled. They were all of one type. There was a "birdiness" discernible on the outer man of each; for birdiness, as well as horseyness, writes its mark on the countenance and the attire. In the latter department there was a proclivity to thick pea-jackets and voluminous white comforters round the neck, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... discernible in this dramatic revelation of progress from spiritual chaos to spiritual order— for to order the play must be said to lead, and progress is implied in its onward movement, if there be anything at all in our growing modern conviction that any vital faith is better than none at all. ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... at Altoona, a large city lying at the foot of the Alleghanies, and in ascending the Alleghanies fine scenery and great engineering feats are discernible. From this we ran on to Pittsburg, which claims to be the best lighted city in America, the streets being brilliantly illuminated by arc and incandescent electric lights. Nine bridges cross the Allegheny, and five the Monongahela rivers. Pittsburg has been called the "iron city," and "smoky city"; ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... the two gates, that is to say, those of the outmost and the inmost walls, have been passed, one mounts by means of steps so formed that an ascent is scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a slanting direction, and the steps succeed one another at almost imperceptible heights. On the top of the hill is a rather spacious plain, and in the midst of this there rises a ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells

... Miss L. two sisters, the one about four and the other about three years old, were inoculated Feb. 7, 1791. On the 10th there was a redness on both arms discernible by a glass. On the 11th their arms were so much inflamed as to leave no doubt of the infection having taken place. On the 12th less appearance of inflammation on their arms. In the evening Miss L. had an eruption, which resembled the measles. On the 12th the eruption on ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... over, and touched the stone lightly with her lips, then passed on to another which was half buried in the earth, the last letters of the inscription being barely discernible. ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... and then the elder lady paused again, and simply began to smile at Bernard, who recognized in her glance that queer little intimation—shy and cautious, yet perfectly discernible—of a desire to have a private understanding with what he felt that she mentally termed his better nature, which he had more than ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... has run away," she said, laughing; and having satisfied her curiosity, turned to retrace her steps,—no easy task to one ignorant of the way, for vault after vault opened on both sides, and no path was discernible. In vain she tried to recall some landmark, the gloom had deepened and nothing was clear. On she hurried, but found no opening, and really frightened, stopped at last, calling the boy in a voice ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... the stream, we were able to conduct the water so as to fall over a rock directly into the casks. While the boys were filling them, I climbed to a height at the mouth of the harbour. There the masts of the French ship were plainly discernible. This did not give me much concern, but directly afterwards I perceived, through my glass, a party of men coming along the beach and ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston

... which has been the main point advanced in connection with the anthropological problems we are discussing, that the most primitive type of man must of necessity be sought for, and can only be found at the extremes of the migration movement wherever that is discernible.[354] ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... of poison will be found. No sign of violence will be discovered anywhere upon the body. Sudden heart failure—that will be apparent. The cause obscure. Organs seemingly healthy; no discernible disease. Muscular failure. Death from natural causes. A case interesting to the medical world, perhaps, but with no suggestion of foul play about it. Now let me have ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... discover nothing. The storm is beginning to abate, I think, and the moon is trying to break through the clouds," and, going again to the window, Hugh looked out into the yard, where the shrubbery and trees were just discernible in the grayish light of the December moon. "That's a big drift by the lower gate," he continued; "and queer shaped, too. Come see, mother. Isn't that a shawl, or an apron, or something ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... Mayor's for the first, and made the last in the hall so they did not set forth till noon; and then, by a childish compliment to the King, reserved the illumination of the hall till his entry; by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. Lady Kildare the Duchess of Richmond, and Lady Pembroke were the capital beauties. Lady Harrington, the finest figure at a distance; old Westmoreland, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... neatly fitted, and of good material, showing that she has been provided for with a careful hand. By her side, and nestling closely to her, is a young girl of fifteen,—her daughter. She is a quadroon, as may be seen from her fairer complexion, though her likeness to her mother is quite discernible. She has the same soft, dark eye, with longer lashes, and her curling hair is of a luxuriant brown. She also is dressed with great neatness, and her white, delicate hands betray very little acquaintance with servile ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... this person's linen would seem to indicate that his association with mere runners was but occasional and for commercial ends. Also might that conclusion have been deduced from the immaculacy of his cream-white Panama hat. That was a jaunty article, with upturned brim, the pride of which was discernible in the very simplicity with which it sat, unadulterated by band or trimmings, upon the closely cropped, mole-colored head of the wearer. Thirty dollars, at least, must have been its marketable value. Instead of being fitted ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... of its fury or ignorance on this document. Many were even unable to write. A circle of ink with a cross in the centre marks their anonymous adhesion to the petition. Some female names are to be seen, and numerous names of children are discernible, from the inaccuracy of their hand, guided by another: poor babes, who professed the opinions of their parents, without comprehending them; and who signed the attestation of the passions of the people, ere their infant tongues could utter ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... Municipality or the Government for the shelter of the people in the neighbourhood during air-raids in the Great War. Evidently there was extensive accommodation here, since this was also an ambulance post. Faintly discernible beneath the letters was a painted white hand which pointed downward. What had happened to the other half of the inscription? Obviously it had been painted on the door leading into the first-aid room and as obviously that door had been removed and had been bricked up. In the light of this discovery ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... brilliantly stacked with ribbons of a score of colors and as many widths. A considerable flow of daylight thus diverted, The Convenience Merchandise Corner, even of early afternoon, fades out into half-discernible corners; a rear-wall display of overalls and striped denim coats crowded back into indefinitude, the haberdashery counter, with a giant gilt shirt-stud ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... successive steps of the development are so well marked, so plainly related, that they may be carried away in a hearer's understanding. It might be said that one test of a good speech is the vividness with which its framework is discernible. Hearers can repeat outlines of certain speeches. Those are the best. Of others they can give merely confused reports. These are the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... level of the sand-bank, I perceived a group that became discernible as three persons attached to an invalid's chair, moving leisurely toward us. I was in the state of mind between divination and doubt when the riddle is not impossible to read, would but the heart cease its hurry an instant; a tumbled sky where the break is coming. It came. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... west a storm threatened, and no street lamps were lighted. In the dim light the figures of the men standing upon the express truck and pitching the boxes in at the doors of the cars were but dimly discernible. Upon the iron railing that protected the station lawn sat other men. Pipes were lighted. Village jokes went back and forth. Away in the distance a train whistled and the men loading the boxes into the cars ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... inexplicable little shake of her head, which said a great many things; and then she and her aunt were left alone. Mrs. Rossitur drew her to her bosom, with a look so exceeding fond that its sadness was hardly discernible. It was mingled, however, with an expression ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small and secluded court-yard. One side of this space was occupied by the square front of the Province House, three stories high, and surmounted by a cupola, on the top of which a gilded Indian was discernible, with his bow bent and his arrow on the string, as if aiming at the weathercock on the spire of the Old South. The figure has kept this attitude for seventy years or more, ever since good Deacon Drowne, a cunning carver of wood, first ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... about to take place, visits the house of the doomed and stands beside his, or her, couch. I have had this phantasm described to me, by those who declare they have seen it, as a very tall, hooded figure, clad in a dark, loose, flowing costume—its face never discernible. It would, of course, be foolish to say that a dog howling in a house is invariably the sign of death; there are many other and obvious causes which produce something of a similar effect; but I think one may be pretty well assured that, when the howling is accompanied by unmistakable signs ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... happened that between his army and that of Minucius there was a certain eminence, which seemed a very advantageous and not difficult post to encamp upon; the level field around it appeared, from a distance, to be all smooth and even, though it had many inconsiderable ditches and dips in it, not discernible to the eye. Hannibal, had he pleased, could easily have possessed himself of this ground; but he had reserved it for a bait, or train, in proper season, to draw the Romans to an engagement. Now that Minucius and Fabius were divided, he thought the opportunity fair ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... distance. The fog settled on everything and shone on the boys' sweaters in little beads of moisture. The Adventurer seemed to be standing still, for, with nothing to judge by, progress was made known only by the slow lazy throb of the engine. Even the water alongside was scarcely discernible. Joe pulled the lever of the fog-horn again, and this time, beside the response from the Follow Me, an answering ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... of the Rishi, the king, with his ministers, felt the desire of eating those fruits. The particular fruit, within which Takshaka had entered, was taken by the king himself for eating. And when he was eating it, there appeared, O Saunaka, an ugly insect out of it, of shape scarcely discernible, of eyes black, and of coppery colour. And that foremost of kings, taking that insect, addressed his councillors, saying, 'The sun is setting; today I have no more tear from poison. Therefore, let this insect become Takshaka ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... in latitude 22 degrees 19 minutes 23 seconds, the land was visible from North-East to South 35 degrees East at the distance of five or six leagues: by its outline which, from the glare of the sun was the only part at all discernible, it seemed to be of moderate height, very level, and offering no particular mark that could be set with any chance of recognition to obtain a cross bearing. As there is every reason to believe that this part of the coast is what ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... half-opened door his first glance fell upon the bed now plainly discernible in the grey light of morning. He stared hard. Then he rubbed his eyes. Then he rubbed his eyes again and thrust his head farther round the edge of the door. With fixed eyes he stared harder ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... dozen visits from his fellow-dogs, who would stop and chat with him a few moments, and then run off to their domiciles. All this while he never left his post for a single minute, and I thought I could discover a gravity in his deportment, not discernible in those by whom he was addressed. Far be it from me to say that the visits he received were upon business, or having anything to do with the local government of the village; but it certainly appeared as if such was the case. If any ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... embusques in all countries, just as there are nouveaux-riches. In Paris these latter are easily discernible. They have not yet had time to become accustomed to their new luxuries; especially the women, who wear exaggerated styles, and flaunt their furs and jewels, which ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... different bodies, so that the same face looks out upon us successively, from the uniform of a hussar, the furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant. But this species of egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... elections, then their arguments become more worthy of consideration. And so the great heart of the parliamentary Pharaoh began to soften towards the anti-vaccinators, and of this softening the first signs were discernible within three or four days of my taking my seat as ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... to this death sentence on the Barcroft name. And yet, light as the family made of it, within a short time there were not wanting indications that their prosperity was on the wane, a fact which every year became more and more discernible until the curse was fulfilled in the person of Thomas Barcroft, who died in 1688 without male issue. After passing through the hands of the Bradshaws, the Pimlots, and the Isherwoods, the property was finally sold ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... boats are plying again, but they stop at nightfall, and the river is inky-smooth, with the same long weed-like reflections as in August. Only the reflections are fewer and paler; bright lights are muffled everywhere. The line of the quays is scarcely discernible, and the heights of the Trocadero are lost in the blur of night, which presently effaces even the firm tower-tops of Notre-Dame. Down the damp pavements only a few street lamps throw their watery zigzags. The shops are shut, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... contrast to the white cloister pillars and the red brick walls above. Over the windows of the King's Gallery on the south side are a dozen round, false windows, filled with time and atmosphere darkened paintings. These paintings, now but dimly discernible as such, were the work of Louis Laguerre, who had been employed in "restoring" the Mantegna "Triumph" in the Communication Gallery, who was very highly esteemed as an artist by William the Third, and who was granted by that monarch apartments in Hampton Court. Probably these pictures, representing ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold

... bodily and mental vigour, longer life, and a stronger inclination and power of generation. But it is impossible to determine when this stage is reached. For the gradual revolutions are too slow to be discernible in the short period known to us by history and tradition. Physically and in mental powers men have been pretty much the same in all known ages. The sciences and arts have flourished now and have again decayed, but when ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... became the dominating issue in European history. We have now to observe the rise of modern nationalities, as new centres of political life, out of the various provinces of the Roman world. In the course of this development the Teutonic representative assembly is at first everywhere discernible, in some form or other, as in the Spanish Cortes or the States-General of France, but on the continent it generally dies out. Only in such nooks as Switzerland and the Netherlands does it survive. In the great nations it succumbs before the encroachments of the crown. The comparatively ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... the unwilling, hesitating general. When he had frittered away another full month in preparation, in slowly crossing the Potomac, and in moving east of the Blue Ridge and massing his army about Warrenton, a short distance south of the battle-field of Bull Run, without a vigorous offensive, or any discernible intention to make one, the President's patience was finally exhausted, and on November 5 he sent him an order removing him from command. And so ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... between good and bad cookery is particularly discernible in the preparation of forcemeats. A common cook is satistified if she chops or minces the ingredients and moistens them with an egg scarcely beaten, but this is a very crude and imperfect method; they should ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore

... of Lake Regillus was regarded during many ages with superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock; and this mark was believed to have been made by one of ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... his eye fell upon the figure of a woman, some distance ahead, and fairly discernible in the gathering twilight. Immediately the song ceased and he steadied himself, gazing incredulously after the form that had attracted ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the salutations discernible among the medley of playful yells, the safety valves ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... paused, hung for tremulous instants, was lost and discernible again. A frozen clod, loosened as she clutched at the projecting roots of a young beech, ricocheted behind her. Her course, paralleling that taken by Holton, was about ten yards to the left of it. To those below it seemed that ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... followed his guide to the outskirts of the village, where it was pitch dark. But soon here, too, rays of light, streaming through the mist from the lamps in the front of the halting station, became discernible through the darkness. The reddish spots of light grew bigger and bigger; at last the stakes of the palisade, the moving figure of the sentinel, a post painted with white and black stripes and the sentinel's ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... Forel wondered as she glanced at the girl opposite her across the table. Alice Deringham had like the rest been stirred out of her reticence, and now she seemed almost transfigured with the warm flush in her cheeks and the pride discernible through ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... hill-tops in the valley below the palace were just discernible in the light of the false dawn, although their bases, extending to the abyss, were still plunged in darkness. A light mist floated in the air; presently it lifted, and the shores of the Dead Sea became visible. The sun, rising behind Machaerus, ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... thou requirest, and not falsify that which thou hast said, that sin is gone over all? But, O my God, I press thee not with thine own text, without thine own comment; I know that in the state of my body, which is more discernible than that of my soul, thou dost effigiate my soul to me. And though no anatomist can say, in dissecting a body, "Here lay the coal, the fuel, the occasion of all bodily diseases," but yet a man may have such a knowledge of his own constitution and bodily inclination to diseases, ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... the wheel and other ferocious methods of execution which were occasionally inflicted by the colonial courts were almost universally discontinued soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century. The general trend of moderation discernible at that time, however, was hampered then and thereafter by the series of untoward events beginning with the San Domingo upheaval and ending with John Brown's raid. In particular the rise of the Garrisonian ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... the relief of her soreness, if not of the effort of her conscience, did something quite visible to my eyes, and also quite unprecedented, for the beauty of her face. She got a real lift from it—such a momentary discernible sublimity that I recollect coming out on the spot with a queer crude amused "Do you know I believe I ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James

... its duties,—in short, to revolutionize society. The crime is perpetrated in secret. Many times no one but the criminal herself is cognizant of the evil deed. Only occasionally do cases come near enough to the surface to be dimly discernible; hence the evident inefficiency of any civil legislation. But the evil is a desperate one, and is increasing; shall no attempt be made to check the tide of crime and save the sufferers from both physical and spiritual perdition? An effort should ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... about me. If anybody owes to my mere favor a place, a post, let us have the name." He enumerated all the services he had rendered to the king, to the state, to the nation, with that somewhat pompous satisfaction which was afterwards discernible in his Memoires. There it was that he wrote: "Perhaps he who contributed, by his energies, to keep off new imposts during five such expensive years; he who was able to devote to all useful works the funds which had been employed upon them in the most ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... differences are often discernible between tertiary individuals and their supposed descendants of the present day affords no argument against Darwins theory, as has been rashly thought, but is decidedly in its favor. If the identification were so perfect that no more differences ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... seem to hear her. He waved an impatient hand for her assistance. "Outside my experience," he muttered, "no heart-beat discernible, no breath ... yet it is indubitably alive." He depressed the soft, plastic ribs and gave the feeble heart a ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... by his scaffold, though it be cheated of its last adornment, and though no eye behold its grinning outline but its own. For there are shadowy scaffolds, and invisible executioners, sitting at our own boards and eating of our own bread, discernible only in a glass. Our own Sheriffs and Executioners ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... and sicklied dulness to her light, and whereever in the niches and hollows of the cliff the shadows fell, all was utterly dark and unbroken by the smallest ray; only along the near waves of the sea and the whiter parts of the level sand were objects easily discernible. I strode to and fro for a few minutes before the Castle Cave; I saw no one, and I seated myself in stern vigilance upon a stone, in a worn recess of the rock, and close by the mouth of the Castle Cave. The spot where I sat was wrapped in total darkness, and I felt assured ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... twilight already beside the river, when Cassion, and his men came straggling back, to report that the canoe had made safe passage, and, taking advantage of his good humor, I proposed a climb up an opening of the bluff, down which led a deer trail plainly discernible. ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... of the Persepolitan ruins to those of an earlier epoch will not fail to be noticed, but there is still a certain amount of barbaric clumsiness discernible, and it is not till we come to Greek architecture that we see how an innate genius for art and beauty, such as was possessed by that people, could cull from previous styles everything capable of being used with effect, and ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith

... the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my steps, being determined to partake of tea before ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... from hard climates, with the names of strange places on their lips, and they speak familiarly of far-off things. Their clothes are generally of ancient cut, and the wrinkles and camphor aroma of a long packing away are yet discernible. Often they are still wearing sun helmets or double terai hats, pending a descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued, for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that; of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed this fissure rapidly widened; there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... the tone in which those conclusions were expressed, can scarcely be doubted. Nevertheless, the fact remains that they were so drawn. That Toland built upon his foundation, Locke himself acknowledges.[174] Traces of his influence are plainly discernible in Collins, Tindal—of whom Shaftesbury calls Locke the forerunner,—Morgan, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... failed to observe that it is most usually associated with water; it was 'the key of the Nile,' that mystical instrument by means of which, in the popular judgment of his Egyptian devotees, Osiris produced the annual revivifying inundations of the sacred stream; it is discernible in that mysterious pitcher or vase portrayed on the brazen table of Bembus, before-mentioned, with its four lips discharging as many streams of water in opposite directions; it was the emblem of the water-deities ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... of many such errors may be the family likeness discernible in all stage material. Still, it is much better for the writer fully to recompense Peter, than to rob Peter to pay ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... seem competent to answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices, is repugnant to rather than conformable with natural reason. There exists no discernible connection between the one and the other. We may suppose that eucharistic, penitential, and even deprecatory sacrifices may have originated in the light of nature and reason, but we are unable to account for the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional atonement, on ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... wickedness. He is called in one book the most notorious of profligates; in another, the brand plucked from the burning. Many excellent persons, whose moral character from boyhood to old age has been free from any stain discernible to their fellow-creatures, have, in their autobiographies and diaries, applied to themselves, and doubtless with sincerity, epithets as severe as could be applied to Titus Oates or Mrs Brownrigg. It is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... rim is not a continuous cliff, but a highly diversified succession of strata. Examination shows the layers of volcanic conglomerate and lava of which, like layers of brick and stone, the great structure was built. The downward dip of these strata away from the lake is everywhere discernible. The volcano's early story thus lies plain to eyes trained to read it. The most interesting of these strata is the lava flow which forms twelve thousand feet of the total precipice of Llao Rock, a prominence ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... these facts are simple, and perhaps, uninteresting; but they serve to exhibit a characteristic of the lower classes of Mexicans. Doubtless, such paltry thieving is the result of a want of animal courage, easily discernible by the close observer of the Mexican race. Of course there are ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... by it now, and a strange instinct directed his steps towards it; he pushed open the yielding door, and stood in the streaming moonlight, among vacant pews, and holy stillness. The Christmas decorations were just discernible by the flickering light of the sanctuary lamp, and from the windows and altars of the quiet little church, the faces of hallowed saints looked down in their venerable simplicity, making the moonlight that made visible their holy smiles, sanctified and imposing. ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... a mackerel, any thing you please; but my ancestors were kangaroos, not monkeys, as old Boddo erroneously opined. My idea is more susceptible of demonstration than his. Among the deepest discovered land fossils, the relics of kangaroos are discernible, but no relics of men. Hence, there were no giants in those days; but on the contrary, kangaroos; and those kangaroos formed the first edition of mankind, since revised ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... Marquise de Campvallon was strolling beside a large circular sheet of water which ornamented the lower part of her park, the metallic gleam of the rippling waves being discernible from afar through the branches of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... in small groups and carefully explained the plan of attack. We were to take the three lines of German trenches that were clearly discernible on the aeroplane photograph which was shown us; the first wave was to take the first trench, the second jumping over their heads and attacking the second German line, the third wave going on to the third German line. When all the Germans had been killed in the first trench, those left of the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... had laid out after one of his visits to Italy. Now, with its dwindling maze and its unpruned rose-bushes, it resembled a picture which has been blotted out until the original intention of the artist is no longer discernible. Yet the place was exquisite still. Spring had passed over it with her magical touch, and she had decorated the spot she could no longer restore. The scent of box filled the air, and little new green leaves had put out on the dusky windings ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... begin their evolution. The organs, by means of which contemporary man becomes cognizant of the physical world, begin to shine in their first delicate ethereal outlines. Human phantoms, displaying as yet nothing but the primeval light pictures of the sense-organs, become discernible within Saturn to the clairvoyant faculty of perception. Thus these sense-organs are the result of the activity of the Sons of Fire; but they are not the only spirits who shared in their creation. Other beings come upon the scene of Saturn at the same time as these Sons ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... of country beneath him—the rich fields and fair vineyards spreading far away to the west and north, with towns and villages here and there rising among them; while far away to the east, among higher hills, lay the French town of Carcassonne, a white mass, just discernible by the light of the setting sun; and the south was bounded by the peaks of the Pyrenees, amongst which lay all Eustace's brightest recollections of novelty, ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... think exactly as I spoke, strive as I might to believe the man in jest. Too much solemnity and sorrow both were discernible in his worn and rugged features, hewn grandly as if from granite, to admit of a hope like this. His words were earnest, and some great calamity was in store, I could not doubt, or at least he apprehended such. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... enticing voluptuousness, as in Lely's portraits of women. The languor and weakness of the eyelids give the amorous turn to the expression. How should there be a rule for all this beforehand, seeing it depends on circumstances ever varying, and scarce discernible but by their effect on the mind? Rules are applicable to abstractions, but expression is concrete and individual. We know the meaning of certain looks, and we feel how they modify one another in conjunction. But we cannot have a separate rule to judge of all their combinations ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... salient of the English army, and consequently there was no Sedan. In Germany, a country ruled by scientific principles, the Great General Staff decided that the contemptible English must have employed shells containing an unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds were discernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the man who knew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves steak knew also that St. George had brought his Agincourt Bowmen to ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen

... evil playing. The people were evidently excited to sorrow when the attempt was at a mournful strain, and to ardour when the lilt took a loftier flight. To me who stood by, the difference of intention on the part of the performer was hardly discernible; indeed to be recognised only by the occasional catching of some familiar word in the burden of the song. The same observation may apply to the current Greek poetry. There can be no mistake in the conclusion, that it produces ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... clearly discernible except when the swiftly-flying clouds obscured the moon's light. The soughing of the wind in the tree-tops, together with the soft springy turf, helped to somewhat deaden the sound of Golightly's hoofs. The good horse scented danger in ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... occurrence and more ill-considered attempts at whimsicality, yet throughout this volume there are indications that the author is awakening to the vulnerability of his position, and this is in no other particular more easily discernible than in the half-hearted defiance of the critics and his anticipation of their censure. The change, so extraordinary in the third volume, is foreshadowed in the second. Purely sentimental, effusive, and abundantly teary is the story of the rescued baker's wife. In this ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... married life passed away, when the young wife found herself mated to one wholly unsuited to her character. She was beautiful, witty, and frivolous; he jealous, dull, and morose. The incompatibility of their dispositions became as discernible to him, as they had become intolerable to her; and, as if to avenge the fate which had united them, he lost no opportunity of thwarting her desires, by such means striving to bend her lissom quality to the gnarled shape of his ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... past facts known only to yourself, why should he not foresee the events to be produced by existing causes? The world of ideas is cut out, so to speak, on the pattern of the physical world; the same phenomena should be discernible in both, allowing for the difference of the medium. As, for instance, a corporeal body actually projects an image upon the atmosphere—a spectral double detected and recorded by the daguerreotype; so also ideas, having a real and effective existence, leave ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... Halevi, the golden age of neo-Hebraic poetry in Spain came to an end, and the period of the epigones was inaugurated. A note of hesitancy is discernible in their productions, and they acknowledge the superiority of their predecessors in the epithet "fathers of song" applied to them. The most noted of the later writers was Yehuda ben Solomon Charisi. Fortune marked him out to be the critic of the great poetic ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... Civil War, and in the war in Cuba (in which the balloon merely served to expose the troops to severe fire), no very valuable information is, as a rule, to be obtained; but in fairly open country all important movements of troops should be discernible by an experienced observer at any point within about four or five miles of the balloon. The circumstances, it may be mentioned, are such as would usually preclude one unaccustomed to ballooning from affording valuable reports. Not only is he liable to be disturbed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... which men have things as they will, because the hold of all outward things upon them is faint and thin. Their prevailing tone is a calm and meditative sweetness. The cry of distress is indeed there, but as a mere residue, a trace of bracing chalybeate salt, just discernible in the song which rises as a clear, sweet spring from a charmed ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... head in her Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop;" what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many other Apron worthies,—figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too clearly discernible. What, for example, are we to make of ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... so long as the parts cohere and the whole is discernible, all will be well yet. I shall not look at it, nor think of it, for a week or two, and then see what I have forgotten. Domizia is all wrong; I told you I knew that her special colour had faded,—it was but a bright line, and the more distinctly deep that it was so narrow. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... was just discernible in the midst of the turmoil of warring elements that filled the dark air with misty spray. A boat had tried to reach the shore with a number of passengers—chiefly men—in her. Her fate was quickly sealed. ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... travellers have observed respecting the characters of the French and English Creoles, will perfectly apply to those of Chili. The same modes of thinking and the same moral qualities are discernible in them all. They generally have respectable talents, and succeed in all the arts to which they apply. Had they the same motives to stimulate them as are found in Europe, they would make as great progress in the useful ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... of opinion is discernible in regard to the foundation of this belief. If some few persons, depraved by false philosophy, presume from time to time to rise up against this doctrine, they are immediately disclaimed by the public ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... south from Peking well-built with solid road-bed, massive stone culverts, iron bridges, and heavy steel rails. The first and second class coaches are not attractive in appearance, and though the fare for the former is double that of the latter, the chief discernible difference is that in the first class compartment, which is usually in one end of a second- class car, the seats are curved and the passengers fewer in number, while in the second-class the seats are straight ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... the dark abysm of things gone by, many places that seemed at first indistinct, grow clearer; but many more must remain impenetrable. Upon the whole, however, I am surprised to find how much is still discernible. Nearly a score of years ago I published, in the shape of a formal biography of Hawthorne and his wife, the consecutive facts of their lives, and numerous passages from their journals and correspondence. My aim is different now; I wish to indite an informal narrative from my own ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... coast there extends a range of round-topped hills, 15 or 16 hundred feet high, covered with a grey-brownish coating, relieved only here and there by patches of dead green, and furrowed by clefts, within which the bright red of tile-roofed houses is discernible. Half-withered cactus trees, the only plants which take root in the ungenial soil, impart no life to the dreary landscape. The hills continue rising in undulating outlines, and extend into the interior of the country, where they unite with the great ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... give me a history of the morning. Dr. John's narration was in many parts very affecting: the dear and excellent king had been praying for his own restoration! Both the doctors told me that such strong symptoms of true piety had scarce ever been discernible through so ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... Knowing how dense the outside darkness would appear to anyone in the vehicle, I made a circuit, and got round to the rear. It was a single-seated buggy, with a white horse, travelling at a walk; and, in the darkness behind the lamps, two figures were discernible. I followed a little, to hear them introduce themselves. They did ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... suddenly as it began—and all is still again in the woodland. But it is not so dark as before. A faint glow of white light is discernible behind the ragged line of the tree tops. The deluge of darkness is receding from the face of the earth, as the mighty waters ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... me in; I'm quite ready," said he, in a tone which indicated that quality, discernible even at so early an age—a "will of his own." To see the way he ordered Malcolm about—the big fellow obeying him, with something beyond even the large limits of that feudal respect which his forbears had paid to ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... salons of the club with head erect and a proud gait, greeting his friends with a barely discernible smile, a mixture of hauteur ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... arms, his head tipped slightly to one side, braced himself as he sent his keen gray eyes searching the crowd. Far away he selected his man. He was young, strong, criminally handsome, clean and alert; there was discernible anxiety on his face, and it touched the Harvester's soul that he was coming just as swiftly as he could force his way. As he passed the gates the Harvester ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... knowledge. It is not much more than a quarter of a century since this class of observation has claimed the close attention of astronomers; something considerable has been discovered already and there seems scarcely a discernible limit to what will be known in this field a century from now. Some of the results which I have set forth may then be shown to be false, but it seems profoundly improbable that we are being led ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... Winter? Yes; there was no doubt of it. The imagination could scarcely conceive a more desolate picture than that upon which we gazed—the plain of sombre snow, beyond which the black huts of the village were faintly discernible, the stunted woods and bleak hills, which night and the raw snow clouds had half obscured, and yonder fur-clad figure gliding silently along beside his reindeer. Yet, even here, where Man seemed to have settled out of pure spite against Nature, were comfort and hospitality and ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... crowded city, eager for space and air, a true daughter of Hungary, Marsa loved to ride through the beautiful, silent park, down the long, almost deserted avenues, toward the bit of pale blue horizon discernible in the distance at the end of the sombre arch formed by the trees. Birds, startled by the horses' hoofs, rose here and there out of the bushes, pouring forth their caroling to the clear ether; and Marsa, spurring her thoroughbred, would ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... received them and a correspondingly significant loss to France. To those two main elements were added sparse accessions from other nations at later intervals, and also a strain of aboriginal blood, of which a more or less faint tinge is still discernible in some families, an admixture which many deplore and others consider as most serviceable, supplying a subtle piquancy for perfecting ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... heresy of Roger Williams? Who else gave the Jesuit missionaries—locusts from the pit as they were—such a hold on the affections of those very savages who would not have scrupled to hang the scalp of pious Father Wilson himself from their girdles? To the vigilant eye of Puritanism was he not alike discernible in the light wantonness of the May-pole revellers, beating time with the cloven foot to the vain music of obscene dances, and in the silent, hat-canopied gatherings of the Quakers, "the most melancholy ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... crowd of distinguished men who looked sorrowfully on. The influence which George Cruikshank exercised upon the genius of Leech will be apparent to any one who has given attention to the early etchings of the latter. This influence will be particularly discernible in the illustrations to "Richard Savage" and "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers." Both were men of genius, but Leech's fancy was of a tamer kind, and little inclined him in the direction of the supernatural or the terrible. Leech, for instance, never produced anything ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... hand stretched toward him from a lower bunk. A bearded face, cadaverously sunken, in which gleamed bright fevered eyes, was now discernible. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... call the boyish period of my life may have their use to some readers. It is pleasant to trace the man in the boy, to observe shoots of generosity in those young years, and to watch the progress of liberal sentiments, and what I may call a genteel way of thinking, which is discernible in some children at a very early age, and usually lays the foundation of all that is praiseworthy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... observed Instantly that the word "pente," five, had its letters crowded together. Now the Greek for seven, hepta, has only four characters, the aspirate being marked over the initial vowel. This same crowding of "pente" was discernible each time it occurred in the text. It was a coincidence that was too intrusive. The obvious explanation was that "hepta" had been deleted and "pente" substituted in every instance, and the fraud had not been detected because the rest of the Greek writing was absolutely genuine. The hieroglyphs ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... appealed to, but they acquiesced. The Roman Catholics were discriminated against, and the nonconformists were not requited for their services; but out of many minor injustices and wrongs, a condition better than anything which had preceded it was soon discernible. The principle was established that royal power was not absolute, nor self-continuing; it could be created only by the representatives of the people, who could take it away again if its trustee were guilty ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... sand; the hull of the Nautilus, resembling a long shoal, disappeared by degrees; but its lantern would help to guide us back when darkness should overtake us in the waters. Soon forms of objects outlined in the distance became discernible. I recognized magnificent rocks, hung with a tapestry of [v]zoophytes of the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... of an imaginative and speculative people. It was propagated, like the dominion of Rome, by conquest. It either took the place of the language of the conquered nation, or became ingrafted upon it, and gradually pervaded its composition; hence its presence is discernible in all ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... a noisy crowd, a babel of loud voices, where the shrill Norman accent was discernible. The villagers formed two ranks, and when the children appeared, each ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... her passengers saw but few of the monsters of the Northern Seas. They caught sight of the spout of a single whale in the distance; it rose in the air exactly like a fountain-jet, but the animal itself was too far off for its huge outlines to be discernible. One shark had the gallantry to swim round them for a few minutes, affording them an opportunity of observing it closely. It appeared to be from sixteen to eighteen ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... Fitton; and he tracked Mary down from the first of her marriages in her teens to her tomb in Cheshire, whither he made a pilgrimage and whence returned in triumph with a picture of her statue, and the news that he was convinced she was a dark lady by traces of paint still discernible. ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw

... was setting, and shone, with half his disk visible, in that dim and cheerless splendor which produces almost in every temperament a feeling of melancholy. His house which, in happier days, formed so beautiful and conspicuous an object in the view, was now, from the darkness of its walls, scarcely discernible. The position of the sun, too, rendered it more difficult to be seen; and Owen, for it was he, shaded his eyes with his hand, to survey it more distinctly. Many a harrowing thought and remembrance passed through his mind, as his eye traced its ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... or wrongly attributed to the lights of the metropolis. After a time it grew chilly, and I was glad to return to my bed. Dawn was separated from me by a thin wooden partition, and her strong healthy breathing was plainly discernible as she lay like an opening rose in maiden slumber, but there was now no sound from the room of the other poor girl—a rose devoured by the worm in ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... and lock, should be covered with a composition, to render them as dull, and as little discernible, as possible. The locks should always be in the very best firing order, and constructed to give fire as easily as the nature of the service will admit. Oil, for the inside of the rifle, should be regularly served; and the flints should ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... they headed, but a man near the window said there were seven large and seven less, lashed small to large in pairs. Yet other counting they did, for now out of Sand Island Channel, just west of the ships, came a shorter line—one, two, three, four strange barely discernible things, submerged like crocodiles, a hump on each of the first two, two humps on each of the others, crossed the fleet's course and led the van on the sunward side to bring themselves first and nearest to Morgan, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... had seen better days; even a landsman could tell that. But from the blunt bows to the weather-scarred stern, on which the name was faintly discernible, the hulk had an air about it, the air of something that has lived; it was eloquent of a ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... perceived that the galatea was in motion. The Mundurucu was the first to notice it; for his attention had for some time been directed to such discovery. For this reason had he cast his searching glances, now down into the turbid waters, and now out through the murky atmosphere. A thicket was discernible through the fog, but every moment becoming less distinct. Of course it was only a collection of tree-tops; but whatever it was, it soon became evident that the galatea was very slowly receding from it. On discovering this, the Mundurucu displayed signs ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... this fault is discernible, it is a creature of ignorance and weakness. It is repulsive. It is simply detestible; in some, more than in others. There is no fault so easily discovered, and there is none so quickly denounced. The affected talker is one of the most disagreeable talkers. If there ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... passionate and bold element of the Sinfonia Eroica was distinctly discernible, especially in the first movement. The slow movement, on the contrary, contained reminiscences of my former musical mysticism. A kind of repeated interrogative exclamation of the minor third merging into the fifth ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... were clearly discernible on the ground. I knew not what to make of it. I thought a dragon must have been rampaging about the premises. Well! the next day the man scratched the manure together again as well as he could, and we sowed a quantity of seed — peas, beans, and divers succulent ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... 28. When colours were discernible, those on journey bent all rose up: the others fain would stay them. The five journeyed together, of "hus-carls" there were present twice that number—it was ill devised—Snaevar and Solar, they were Hogni's sons; Orkning he was named, who them accompanied, ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... bottle-shaped chimneys of the power plant injected heavy black smoke into the wet air. In Faber Street the once brilliant signs above the "ten-foot" buildings seemed dulled, the telegraph poles starker, nakeder than ever, their wires scarcely discernible against the smeared sky. The pedestrians were sombrely garbed, and went about in "rubbers"—the most depressing of all articles worn by man. Sodden piles of snow still hid the curb and gutters, but the pavements were trailed with mud that gleamed in the light from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... we may argue with respect to other productions of these customs and principles of the Quakers. As we have seen the latter lead to character, so we have seen them lead to happiness. The manner of their operation to this end has been also equally discernible. As we value them because they produce the one, so we should value them because they produce the other. We have seen also which of them to value. And we should be studious to cherish the very least of these, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... when Fanny at last knocked at the door, begging to be admitted. "I won't open it, love, but I will be with you in ten minutes; I will, indeed." And so she was; not, perhaps, without traces of tears, discernible by the experienced eye of Mrs. Robarts, but yet with a smooth brow, and voice under her ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... or rather its lower peaks, and the summits of others of the chain emerged above the clear horizon, and finally the inferior line of hills which connected most of them rose to view. So far, however, are objects discernible in the pure atmosphere of these elevated plains, that, from the place where they first descried the main mountain, they had to travel a hundred and fifty miles before they reached its base. Here they encamped on the 30th of August, having come nearly four hundred ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... increasing efforts to investigate and prosecute traffickers; however, in July 2007, the government established the "National Coordinating Committee to Combat and Prevent Trafficking in Persons," which improved inter-governmental coordination on anti-trafficking initiatives; Egypt made no discernible efforts to punish trafficking crimes in 2007 and the Egyptian penal code does not prohibit all forms of trafficking; Egypt did not increase its services to trafficking victims during ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... indeed, to discover that the dark object just discernible upon the edge of the blackened mass of smoking cinders really was a human being, so shapeless was the form, so strangely was it crouched down before the spot where the pile had been consumed. From time to time only an upward-flung movement of two thin arms, as if in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... doubtful if any of the vessel's crew had seen our boat, as it was scarcely daylight and such a small object lying close to the water would not be readily discernible. I had thought, a few hours before, that my strength was entirely exhausted, but the sight of the vessel called out a reserve ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... differed greatly in the shape of their heads, and still more so in the form of their tails, that of the black snake being round and tapering to a fine point, while the thick rattle of the other was clearly discernible as they writhed and twisted round and round, its sound never ceasing while the deadly struggle continued; that and the angry hiss emitted by both alone broke the perfect silence which otherwise reigned ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... Taou Yuen so that he could see her features. It was evident that she was not, as he had first thought, dead; her breathing was slow and deep and harsh, her pulse deliberate and full; she was warm, too, but her face was suffused by an unnatural blueness and the pupils of her inert eyes were barely discernible. He shook her with an unceremonious vigor, but there was no answering energy; she fell across his arm in a sheer weight of satin-covered body. He moved back in a momentary uncontrollable repulsion when Kate Vollar threw herself ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... There is an extensive view from Asolo. Venice, with its cupolas and steeples, is seen to the east. Ottima detects the belfry of the Church of St. Mark. The towns of Vicenza and Padua are also discernible. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning



Words linked to "Discernible" :   indiscernible, perceptible, discern, discernable, noticeable, observable



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