Discovering

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /dɪsˈkʌvəɹɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The act of uncovering or learning something that was not known before
2. The process by which new information or facts are revealed or understood
3. An event or action that leads to the recognition or realization of something previously hidden or unknown

Etymology: "Discovering" is the present participle of "discover", so its history is that of the verb. The verb descends from Late Latin "discoperire", built from "dis-", meaning "undo", and "cooperire", "to cover", so a discovery was literally the removal of a covering. The Old French "descovrir" carried that sense of uncovering into Middle English as "discoveren", and the picture of lifting a veil stayed close to the surface of the word for centuries. The native English word it replaced is the more striking detail. Old English had "onfindan", meaning to find out or come upon, and "discover" displaced it. The Latin-derived term thus pushed out a native verb that had covered much the same ground.

Synonyms: finding, uncovering, revealing, detecting, exploring

Antonyms: losing, concealing, hiding, ignoring