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==English==

===Etymology===
From {{inh|en|enm|descrien|}}, {{m|enm|descriven||}} in the 14th century already had the dual sense of "to proclaim, announce, make known" and "to see, discern, discover". On the one hand, the Middle English word is a loan {{der|en|fro|descrier||to proclaim, announce, cry}}, from {{m|fro|des-}} + {{m|fro|crier||shout, cry}}; in this case, the word is a  {{doublet|en|decry|nocap=1}}, which was loaned from the same French source in the 17th century.
Alternatively, as suggested by the spelling ''descriven'', the Middle English word may be a contraction of {{der|en|fro|descrire}}, {{m|fro|descrivre||to describe}}, from Latin {{m|la|describere}}, and thus a {{doublet|en|describe|nocap=1}} (so Palmer 1890, attributing the view to Walter William Skeat), but modern dictionaries more often seem to prefer the view that there was a secondary, folk-etymological influence on ''descrien'' by ''descriven'' within
Middle English (so ''The Century Dictionary'' 1911).<!--not sure there is a clear distinction between the two views, both French words were loaned in the 14th century and then used near-interchangeably. One would need to trace the two Middle English spellings wrt the precise meaning to learn more-->

The semantic shift from "announce" to "discern, detect" is via "to cry out on discovering something that has been looked for".
Palmer (1890) compares the etymology of Latin {{m|la|explorare}} "to search a wood &c. with cries".

===Pronunciation===
* {{IPA|en|/dɪˈskɹaɪ/}}
* {{audio|en|LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-descry.wav|a=Southern England}}
* {{rhymes|en|aɪ|s=2}}

===Verb===
{{en-verb}} {{tlb|en|literary}}

# {{lb|en|transitive}} To announce a discovery: to [[disclose]]; to [[reveal]].
#* {{RQ:Quarles Shepheards Oracles|page=119|passage=The kalender, {{...}} hath late '''deſcry'd''' / That evill affected planet ''Mars'', ally'd / To temporizing ''Mercury'', conjoyn'd / I'th'houſe of Death; {{...}}}}
#* {{RQ:Milton History|page=87|passage=His Body was found almost naked in the field, for his Purple Robe he had thrown aside, lest it should '''descry''' him, unwilling to be found.}}
# {{lb|en|transitive}} To [[see]], especially from afar; to [[discover]] (a distant or obscure object) by the eye; to [[espy]]; to [[discern]] or [[detect]].
#* {{RQ:Shakespeare Pericles|act=I|scene=iv|passage=Wee haue '''descryed''' vpon our neighbouring / shore, a portlie saile of ships make hitherward.}}
#* {{RQ:Melville Moby-Dick|chapter=35|page=151|passage=—Under this head I reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often '''descried''' by passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks.}}
#* {{RQ:Shakespeare King Lear|act=IV|scene=v|page=302|column=1|passage=''Edmund'', I thinke, is gone, / In pitty of his miſery, to diſpatch / His nighted life: Moreouer to '''deſcry''' / The ſtrength o’ th’ Enemy.}}
#* {{RQ:Milton Paradise Lost|book=X|lines=325-326|passage=And now thir way to Earth they had '''descri’d''', / To Paradise first tending, {{...}}|year=1873}}
#* {{RQ:Defoe Robinson Crusoe|page=127|passage=When I had pass’d the Vale where my Bower stood as above, I came within View of the Sea, to the ''West'', and it being a very clear Day, I fairly '''descry’d''' Land—whether an Island or a Continent, I could not tell; but it lay very high, extending from the ''West'' to the ''W.S.W.'' at a very great Distance;}}
#* {{RQ:Churchill Celebrity|chapter=IV|page=47|passage=Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days’ cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I '''descried''' a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.}}
#* {{quote-text|en|year=1954|author=J. R. R. Tolkien|title=The Two Towers|page=15
|passage=Dimly through the mists they could '''descry''' the long arm of the mountains rising on their left.}}

====Derived terms====
{{col-auto|en|undescrying|descriable
|undescried
}}

====Translations====
{{trans-see|see}}

{{trans-top|to discover; to detect}}
* Assamese: {{t|as|ধৰা পেলোৱা}}
* Bulgarian: {{t+|bg|съзирам}}, {{t+|bg|забелязвам}}
* Czech: {{t|cs|rozeznat}}
* French: {{t+|fr|percevoir}}
* German: {{t+|de|wahrnehmen}}, {{t+|de|erkennen}}, {{t+|de|entdecken}}, {{t|de|herauslesen}}, {{t+|de|entdecken}}
* Latin: {{t|la|prospicio}}
* Polish: {{t|pl|zauważyć, wywnioskować}}
* Romanian: {{t+|ro|vedea}}, {{t+|ro|observa}}, {{t+|ro|zări}}, {{t|ro|băga de seamă}}
* Russian: {{t+|ru|замеча́ть}}
{{trans-bottom}}

===Further reading===
* {{R:Webster 1913}}
* {{R:Century 1911}}
* {{R:OneLook}}
* {{R:Lexico}}
*Smythe Palmer, ''Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions Or Words Perverted in Form Or Meaning, by False Derivation Or Mistaken Analogy'' (1890), p. 97.

===Anagrams===
* {{anagrams|en|a=cdersy|cyders}}

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