descry

The superior power of machine learning, Cohen explains, is that it can descry patterns in what traditional sensory methods dismissed as noise.

From The Guardian ● May 23, 2018

What yonder twinkling azure orb do I descry?

From Washington Post ● Apr. 29, 2015

You will descry shades of H. Potter and of "Grimm," which this series predates.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2012

Was the distribution of shot times entirely random, or were there any local or global patterns to descry: longies with longies, middies alternating with shorties, etc.?

From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2010

Dimly through the mists they could descry the long arm of the mountains rising on their left.

From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien

Instinct blindly resists all change, as though it were unable to distinguish what reason dimly descries beyond the trials and dangers of the moment.

From The Choice of Life by Georgette Leblanc

An instant later, the dying face seemed lightened, like one who descries the lights of home.

From St. Cuthbert's by Robert E. Knowles

Presently a long street opens before him, at whose farther end he descries a forest of masts, with their network of spars and rigging, like the web of a gigantic spider.

From The Land of Fire A Tale of Adventure by Mayne Reid

While scanning the moonlit expanse he descries a group of figures; apparently quadrupeds, though of what species he cannot tell.

From The Death Shot A Story Retold by Mayne Reid

"An evil-minded man is quick to see his neighbor's faults, though small as mustard-seed; but when he turns his eyes towards his own, though large as Bilva fruit, he none descries."

From Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being a Comparison of the Old and New Testament Myths and Miracles with those of the Heathen Nations of Antiquity Considering also their Origin and Meaning by T. W. Doane

Once the employer of 500 people, the mill is a keyhole through which most of Dundee’s history can be descried.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 30, 2022

A truly fascinating man, Angleton was a devoted student of the matchless British literary critic William Empson, who descried, in the densely metaphoric poems of Donne and Shakespeare, patterns of subtle contradiction, self-reference, and ambiguity.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 26, 2019

Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2019

Police Chief Murphy Paul descried the footage as “shocking to the conscience,” even as he emphasized that it does not “tell the whole story of the investigation.”

From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2018

To the east the outflung arm of the mountains marched to a sudden end, and far lands could be descried beyond them, wide and vague.

From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien

My colleague Jessica Winter does have a helpful hint, though, for descrying Trump’s fanciest, sneakiest adviser:

From Slate ● May 2, 2017

Say you were descrying the future TV of 2000, 20 years ago.

From Time Magazine Archive

Here were tall stone vases on either hand, and beside one of these at the lower terrace two ladies had paused, waiting, descrying his approach.

From The Ordeal A Mountain Romance of Tennessee by Douglas Duer

She wished now she had aroused her father immediately on first descrying the man.

From Frances of the Ranges The Old Ranchman's Treasure by Amy Bell Marlowe

But when as homeward bound we speed, The swift sea-bird outflying, With throbbing heart I watch the land, Its blue hills far descrying; Impatient, now, to leave the sea.

From Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 by Robert Taylor Conrad