secern
/sɪˈsɜːn/
"secern" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“secern” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To separate or set apart (someone or something from other persons or things).
Corpus desk
Index EN-secern · secern · English
secern · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | secern |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /sɪˈsɜːn/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “secern” in English
Rare enough to double-check
secern is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /sɪˈsɜːn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for secern, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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”… The correct English form is secern, spelled S-E-C-E-R-N.
Definition
- 1To separate or set apart (someone or something from other persons or things).
- 2To separate (something from other things) in the mind; to discriminate, to distinguish.
- 3Synonym of secrete (“to extract or separate (a substance) from the blood, etc., for excretion or for the fulfilling of a physiological function”).
- 4Of a person or thing: to become separated from others.
- 5To secrete a substance.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how secern appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
'[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.
Often a prize would be awarded to some one dancer who had excelled his fellows. There were, I suppose, "born" Morris-dancers. Now and again one of them, flushed with triumph, would secern himself from his troupe, and would "star" round the country for his livelihood.
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”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.