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:
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
Similarly, the time-honored phenomenon of diabolical possession is on the point of being admitted by the scientist as a fact, now that he has the name of "hystero-demonopathy" by which to apperceive it.
From Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature by James, William
Evidently the ideal has been formed by the habit of perception; it is, in a rough way, that average form which we expect and most readily apperceive.
From The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by Santayana, George
To apperceive, for instance, the rules of government and agreement in grammar will have a very limited value if the student is not able to give expression to these in his own conversation.
From Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education by Ontario. Ministry of Education
He can not apperceive it so as to permit him to gratify my claim; but there is enough appeal in the claim to induce him to write a whole article in justification of his refusal.
From Essays in Radical Empiricism by James, William
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
They also apperceived from my speech that I had come from a great distance.
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
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
The way in which the human figure, for instance, is depicted, is an indication of the way in which it is apperceived.
From The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by Santayana, George
It may include facts which have fallen within the sensory field, but which have never been supraliminally "apperceived" or cognised in any way.
From Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Myers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)
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
The choices which determine the universe of maturity are often made in youth; then the foundations are laid of that apperceiving mass which is to condition all the man's contacts with reality.
From The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day by Underhill, Evelyn
In the interaction between the old and new the latter then become the apperceiving forces.
From The Elements of General Method Based on the Principles of Herbart by McMurry, Charles Alexander
So strong is the apperceiving force of familiar notions that they drag far-distant scenes in geography and history into the home neighborhood and locate them there.
From The Elements of General Method Based on the Principles of Herbart by McMurry, Charles Alexander
The comic depends upon our apperceiving an object in terms of some idea and finding it incongruous.
From The Principles of Aesthetics by Parker, Dewitt H.
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.
