to discover - to research to find out - to "ask a friend"

To discover is to find something or know something that is completely new .(first to do so) Columbus discovered America / He discovered that he is a thief.? He discovered a new drug. To find out is the same as above , but lacking the quality of being the first to know. But the difference is very fine for above context - interchangeable for some cases . She discovered/found out that she is pregnant > but you can't say Columbus found out America. When to use which depends on your "experience" They will never find out that I did it Found out can also mean to be caught doing something not appropriate He ha been a thief for a long time before he was found out

These are synonyms so it is kind of tricky. In general usage, discover is used as a stronger form of "finding out". When I say stronger, I simply mean that the observation/realization that has been made has a higher importance or novelty to it. As mentioned previously there are situations where you would definitely use one of these words over the other, however there are a lot of instances where they could be interchanged.

You can only "find out" information. You can "discover" both things and information. The difference between "find out" and "discover", when talking about information, has to do with register. "Find out" is a phrasal verb, so it's common, everyday speech. "Discover" has a French/Latin origin, so we see it as a more businesslike, serious and even academic word (even though it is still a very commonly-used word in English).

..lol.. :) good one Context is the important thing here, although English is filled with superlatives and expressives; context wins and we dont write italics, but we speak them.. "today, I DISCOVERED that the local newspaper has a cartoon section".. "really? where, i never noticed that!" "yep. on 14 page" "cool" The implication above, is that the main person speaking is a wonderous human being for finding something that noone else ever knew and it took about 40 years locked in a dark room studying all the newspapers ever printed