apperceive
Americanverb (used with object)
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to have conscious perception of; comprehend.
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to comprehend (a new idea) by assimilation with the sum of one's previous knowledge and experience.
verb
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to be aware of perceiving
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psychol to comprehend by assimilating (a perception) to ideas already in the mind
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of apperceive
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English word from Old French word aperceivre. See ap- 1, perceive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They said they worshipped some angel, who appears to them as a Divine man, for he is resplendent with light; and that he instructs them and enables them to apperceive what they ought to do.
From Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There by Swedenborg, Emanuel
If there is only one natural law, and we see it only in seemingly unrelated facets because of our ignorance, because we cannot apperceive the whole, then this, too, is no more than another facet.
From Eight Keys to Eden by Clifton, Mark
They stated the view with a rash emphasis, until one is forced to ask whether a mind which is originally nothing at all, can absorb, or as psychologists say, "apperceive" anything whatever.
From Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle by Brailsford, Henry Noel
Good instruction, then, involves first putting the child into a proper frame of mind to apperceive the new knowledge, and hence this becomes a corner-stone of all good teaching method.
From The History of Education; educational practice and progress considered as a phase of the development and spread of western civilization by Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson
They are almost certain, therefore, to apperceive the new idea; that is, to conquer and subdue it, to make it tributary to their power.
From The Elements of General Method Based on the Principles of Herbart by McMurry, Charles Alexander
It is when you have fully apperceived the object that your conception is complete.
From Vocal Expression A Class-book of Voice Training and Interpretation by Everts, Katherine Jewell
The object is unideal, that is, the novel, external element is inharmonious with the revived and internal element by suggesting which the object has been apperceived.
From The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by Santayana, George
C. Adds to Clearness of Knowledge.—Not only does expression test the clearness of the apperceived new knowledge, but at the same time it gives the knowledge greater clearness.
From Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education by Ontario. Ministry of Education
In what opposite ways must the child's parents have apperceived the burning house and the engine respectively!
From Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals by James, William
Thus, for example, newly formed representations are apperceived by the existing older ones, but the highest apperceiver is not, in turn, itself apperceived.
From History of Modern Philosophy From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time by Falckenberg, Richard
That was his mode of apperceiving the spectacle.
From Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals by James, William
But, if he goes to a house where there are round tables and still calls them tables, his apperceiving notion 'table' acquires immediately a wider inward content.
From Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals by James, William
Time will be saved by having the apperceiving ideas ready and active.
From Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education by Ontario. Ministry of Education
Some of the apperceiving ideas are recent acquisitions of our own, but most of them are common-sense traditions of the race.
From Meaning of Truth by James, William
In an act of memory, therefore, the new presentation, like all new presentations, must be interpreted in terms of past experience, or by an apperceiving act of attention.
From Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education by Ontario. Ministry of Education
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
