Descry

From Old French descrier ("to proclaim, announce, cry").

Full definition of descry

(transitive) To see.
(transitive) To discover (a distant or obscure object) by the eye; to espy; to discern or detect.

ShakespeareEdmund, I think, is gone ... to descry
The strength o' the enemy.
MiltonAnd now their way to earth they had descried.
1719 Daniel Defoe, Robinson CrusoeWhen I had passed the vale where my bower stood...I came within view of the sea...and it being a very clear day, I fairly descried land—whether an island or a continent I could not tell; but it lay very high, extending...at a very great distance...
1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 4, Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.