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.
People apperceive, think, and feel as these three teach them, and finally it becomes second nature to follow this line of least resistance, and to seek intellectual conformity.
From Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students by Gross, Hans Gustav Adolf
Thus, so long as the child is able to apperceive only the three sides and three angles of a triangle, his idea of triangle includes a synthesis of these.
From Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education by Ontario. Ministry of Education
Certain signs of passion are all that we ever apperceive externally.
From Laughter : an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Brereton, Cloudesley Shovell Henry
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
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
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.
