confer vs discuss

confer and discuss both are verbs.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
confer	No	No	Yes	No
discuss	No	No	Yes	No

As verbs, discuss is a hypernym of confer; that is, discuss is a word with a broader meaning than confer:

confer: have a conference in order to talk something over
discuss: speak with others about (something); talk (something) over in detail; have a discussion

Other hypernyms of confer include hash out, talk over.

confer (verb)	discuss (verb)
have a conference in order to talk something over	speak with others about (something); talk (something) over in detail; have a discussion
present	to consider or examine in speech or writing