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Secern

//sɪˈsɜːn// verb

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To separate or set apart (someone or something from other persons or things). archaic, literary, transitive

    "'[T]is not ſo much a local and bodily ſecerning our ſelves from evil men that God requires (as the Donatiſts falſely taught) but a ſpiritual ſeparation in mind and affections, and from their ſins, more than from their perſons."

  2. 2
    mark as different wordnet
  3. 3
    To separate (something from other things) in the mind; to discriminate, to distinguish. broadly, literary, transitive
  4. 4
    Synonym of secrete (“to extract or separate (a substance) from the blood, etc., for excretion or for the fulfilling of a physiological function”). archaic, literary, transitive

    "[T]he joint-glands themſelves grovv rigid, and ſecern leſs of their proper humour. Hence vvhen the gout falls upon people in years, it proves very ſevere, for vvant of a neceſſary quantity of that oleaginous matter to extinguiſh it."

  5. 5
    Of a person or thing: to become separated from others. intransitive, literary
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  1. 6
    To secrete a substance. intransitive, literary, rare

    "[…] Birds bee commonly better Meat than Beaſts, becauſe their Fleſh doth aſſimilate more finely, and ſecerneth more ſubtilly."

Etymology

PIE word *swé Learned borrowing from Latin sēcernere, the present active infinitive of sēcernō (“to put apart, divide, separate, sever, sunder; (figuratively) to disjoin, dissociate, part; to discern, distinguish; to exclude, pull aside, set aside, reject”), from sē- (prefix meaning ‘apart; aside; away’) + cernō (“to divide, separate; to distinguish, sift; to perceive, see; to comprehend, discern, regard, understand; to decide”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *krey- (“to divide, separate, sift”)). Senses 1.3 and 2.2 (“synonym of secrete”) derive from the use of the Latin word sēcernere to translate Ancient Greek ἀποκρίνειν (apokrínein), the active infinitive participle of ἀποκρίνω (apokrínō, “to set apart, separate; to choose; to reject on inquiry; to answer, reply”).

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