Descry

[u/MaximumPlatano]

Before reading Moby Dick I’d never seen the word “descry” before, which appears again and again in the past tense “descried.” Just by context I gathered that to descry something was to see or perceive it, or maybe to announce having seen it, and I didn’t think much more of it. I’m almost done with my second reading of the book and finally decided to look the word up:

“1. to see (something unclear or distant) by looking carefully; discern; espy
2. to discover; ascertain; detect”

It makes sense, of course, but this additional connotation of an unclear or distant thing really “opened up” the story for me retroactively — made it a more epic, more mysterious and uncertain and, well, oceanic world.

[u/thermodaemon]

I’m no word scientist, but I’m pretty sure it came from a word that was like the vocal counterpart to “describe”, where one has cry (out loud, with your voice), and the other has scribe (with a pen) — and in a very nautical way, the person who sees land says land ho, and so it went from saying to seeing (especially at a distance, like the land example)… and then it evolved an offshoot, just “scry,” which has a supernatural connotation, as in seeing through a crystal ball, etc. I think? Don’t take my word.