{"id":22302,"date":"2022-07-01T12:17:52","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T12:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22302"},"modified":"2022-07-01T12:18:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T12:18:46","slug":"distretely-discreet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22302","title":{"rendered":"Distreetly Discrete"},"content":{"rendered":"

The words discrete<\/strong> and discreet<\/strong> are both pronounced in the same way – [d\u026as\u02c8k\u0279i\u02d0t] – but have different meanings, or in other words, are homophones<\/strong>. Until yesterday, I didn\u2019t realise that they were discrete words.<\/p>\n

\"Discretely<\/p>\n

discrete<\/strong> means<\/p>\n

1. apart or detached from others; separate; distinct
\n2. consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; discontinuous. [source<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It also has specific meanings in mathematics that I won\u2019t go into here.<\/p>\n

discreet<\/strong> means<\/p>\n

1. judicious in one’s conduct or speech, especially with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect.
\n2. showing prudence and circumspection; decorous
\n3. modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious [source<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>discrete<\/strong> comes from the Old French discret<\/em> (different), from the Latin discr\u0113tus<\/em> (separate, differentiated), from discern\u014d<\/em> (I separate, set apart, divide, part), from dis-<\/em> (asunder, in pieces, apart, in two) and cern\u014d<\/em> (I distinguish, divide, separate), from the Proto-Italic *krin\u014d<\/em>, from the Proto-Indo-European *krey-<\/em> (to sieve) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

discreet<\/strong> comes from the same source, via the Middle English word discrete<\/strong>, which meant wise, morally discerning, prudent, polite, and also separate or distinct [source<\/a>]. The two words separated during the Middle English period and acquired discrete meanings [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

The word discern<\/strong> (to detect with the senses, perceive, distinguish) comes from the same roots [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Indiscrete<\/strong> and indiscreet<\/strong> are also discrete words. The former means not divided into discrete parts, while the latter means lacking prudence, revealing secrets, or tactless [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

They both come from the Latin indiscretus<\/em> (unseparated, undivided, indistinguisable), from in-<\/em> (un-, non-, not) and discr\u0113tus<\/em> (see above<\/a>) [source<\/a>].<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s not be indiscreet about discreetly keeping these words discrete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The words discrete and discreet are both pronounced in the same way – [d\u026as\u02c8k\u0279i\u02d0t] – but have different meanings, or in other words, are homophones. Until yesterday, I didn\u2019t realise that they were discrete words. discrete means 1. apart or detached from others; separate; distinct 2. consisting of or characterized by distinct or individual parts; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,10,15,26,34,45,46,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-english","category-old-french","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-italic","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22302"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22305,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22302\/revisions\/22305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}