DISCRETION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Discretion

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/dɪskrˈɛʃən/ Listen

noun

Discretion n.

Disjunction; separation. (Obs.)

The quality of being discreet; wise conduct and management; cautious discernment, especially as to matters of propriety and self-control; prudence; circumspection; wariness. "The better part of valor is discretion." "The greatest parts without discretion may be fatal to their owner."

Discrimination. "Well spoken, with good accent and good discretion."

Freedom to act according to one's own judgment; unrestrained exercise of choice or will.

At discretion, without conditions or stipulations.

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Etymology of 'Discretion'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Discretion" Quotes from Famous Books

... breakfast with an excellent appetite. Hans, our worthy guide, thoroughly understood how to cook such eatables as we were able to provide; he had both fire and water at discretion, so that he was enabled slightly to vary the weary monotony of our ...

— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink, and I know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some boorish sneer of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with our money. It led to my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that ...

— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... Balzac's is to the point, as illustrating a certain appreciation of these social considerations which we all to a degree entertain. The Duchesse de Carigliano says to Madame de Sommervieux: "I know the world too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of a too superior man. You should know that one may allow them to court one, but marry them—that is a mistake! Never—no, no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in inspecting the machinery of the opera instead of sitting in a box to enjoy its brilliant ...

— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... several of the guns and sinking the gunpowder in the Elbe; consequently, on the non-recognition of the capitulation by the generalissimo, Schwarzenberg, he found himself without means of defence and was compelled to surrender at discretion with a garrison thirty-five thousand strong. Rapp, the Alsatian, commanded in Dantzig. This city had already fearfully suffered from the commercial interdiction, from the exactions and the scandalous license of its French protectors, whom the ravages of famine and ...

— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... and a third in 1746. In the first only a slender provision was made for his lady, by the second a family estate in Devonshire, of 2,000 pounds per annum, was given her for her life, and by the third the whole estate real and personal was left to be disposed of at her discretion without any provision for the heir-at-law. The jury, after having withdrawn for about an hour and a half, set aside the last and confirmed the second. In a hearing before the Lord Chancellor some time afterwards in relation ...

— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

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