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Descry in Scrabble and Meaning

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What does descry mean? Is descry a Scrabble word?

How many points in Scrabble is descry worth? descry how many points in Words With Friends? What does descry mean? Get all these answers on this page.

Scrabble® and Words with Friends® points for descry

See how to calculate how many points for descry.

Is descry a Scrabble word?

Yes. The word descry is a Scrabble US word. The word descry is worth 12 points in Scrabble:

D2E1S1C3R1Y4

Is descry a Scrabble UK word?

Yes. The word descry is a Scrabble UK word and has 12 points:

D2E1S1C3R1Y4

Is descry a Words With Friends word?

Yes. The word descry is a Words With Friends word. The word descry is worth 12 points in Words With Friends (WWF):

D2E1S1C4R1Y3

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Valid words made from Descry

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Results

6-letter words (3 found)

CYDERS,DESCRY,SCRYDE,

5-letter words (6 found)

CREDS,CYDER,DECRY,DREYS,DYERS,YERDS,

4-letter words (14 found)

CRED,DEYS,DREY,DRYS,DYER,DYES,RECS,REDS,RYES,SCRY,SCYE,SYCE,SYED,YERD,

3-letter words (17 found)

CRY,DEY,DRY,DYE,EDS,ERS,REC,RED,RES,RYE,SEC,SED,SER,SEY,SYE,YER,YES,

2-letter words (6 found)

DE,ED,ER,ES,RE,YE,

1-letter words (1 found)

E,

You can make 47 words from descry according to the Scrabble US and Canada dictionary.

Definitions and meaning of descry

descry

Etymology

Middle English descrien, descriven in the 14th century already had the dual sense of "to proclaim, announce, make known" and "to see, discern, discover". On the one hand, the Middle English word is a loan Old French descrier (“to proclaim, announce, cry”), from des- + crier (“shout, cry”); in this case, the word is a doublet of decry, which was loaned from the same French source in the 17th century. Alternatively, as suggested by the spelling descriven, the Middle English word may be a contraction of Old French descrire, descrivre (“to describe”), from Latin describere, and thus a doublet of describe (so Palmer 1890, attributing the view to Walter William Skeat), but modern dictionaries more often seem to prefer the view that there was a secondary, folk-etymological influence on descrien by descriven within Middle English (so The Century Dictionary 1911).

The semantic shift from "announce" to "discern, detect" is via "to cry out on discovering something that has been looked for". Palmer (1890) compares the etymology of Latin explorare "to search a wood &c. with cries".

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /dɪˈskɹaɪ/
  • Rhymes: -aɪ

Verb

descry (third-person singular simple present descries, present participle descrying, simple past and past participle descried) (literary)

  1. (transitive) To announce a discovery: to disclose; to reveal.
  2. (transitive) To see, especially from afar; to discover (a distant or obscure object) by the eye; to espy; to discern or detect.

Translations

Further reading

  • “descry”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
  • “descry”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
  • “descry”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
  • “descry”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  • Smythe Palmer, Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions Or Words Perverted in Form Or Meaning, by False Derivation Or Mistaken Analogy (1890), p. 97.

Anagrams

  • cyders

Source: wiktionary.org