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

We stood side by side there in the near-dark; I could descry the fear in his eyes, the discomfort in the mouth.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day, through this bounteous realm of England, descries the Union Workhouse on his path.

From Past and Present Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. by Carlyle, Thomas

His heart feels a fresh bound; he feels neither strain of limb nor scantness of breath, and, searching as he runs, he descries before him in the plain the deceitful sire alone.

From Hawaiian Folk Tales A Collection of Native Legends by Thrum, Thomas G. (Thomas George)

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 Leblanc, Georgette

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 Reid, Mayne

Olimpia awakes, and, finding herself alone, hurries to the beach, and then ascends a rock, whence she descries, by light of the moon, the departing sail of her lover.

From History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Volume I by Dunlop, John

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

Another witness descried their relationship as being "more like mother and daughter".

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2021

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

There it seemed to Frodo that he descried far off, floating as it were on a shadowy sea, the high dim tops and broken pinnacles of old towers forlorn and dark.

From "The Two Towers" 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

He caught only a flitting glimpse of a person, who, descrying him at the same instant, whisked behind a bowlder for protection.

From The Young Ranchers or, Fighting the Sioux by Ellis, Edward Sylvester

Withdrawing, the gunners on Pepworth, descrying the strings of moving bullocks, launched a shell which pitched exactly upon one of the guns, and tumbled it over.

From History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government by Great Britain. War Office

At last, descrying a phosphorescent gleam in the depths, he quickly made his way thither, shrewdly conjecturing that it must be Grendel's hiding place.

From Legends of the Middle Ages Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art by Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline)