perception
Americannoun
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perceptions
plural
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the act or faculty of perceiving, or apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding.
- Synonyms:
- recognition, sense, awareness
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immediate or intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological, or aesthetic qualities; insight; intuition; discernment.
an artist of rare perception.
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the result or product of perceiving, as distinguished from the act of perceiving; percept.
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Psychology. a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present.
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Law. the taking into possession of rents, crops, profits, etc.
noun
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the act or the effect of perceiving
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insight or intuition gained by perceiving
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the ability or capacity to perceive
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way of perceiving; awareness or consciousness; view
advertising affects the customer's perception of a product
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the process by which an organism detects and interprets information from the external world by means of the sensory receptors
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law the collection, receipt, or taking into possession of rents, crops, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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nonperceptionnoun
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reperceptionnoun
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self-perceptionnoun
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nonperceptionaladjective
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perceptionaladjective
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unperceptionaladjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of perception
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English percepcioun, from Old French percepcïon, from Latin perceptiōn-, stem of perceptiō “comprehension,” literally, “a taking in”; see percept, -ion
Explanation
Each generation has a different perception — view, idea or understanding — of what is cool. You wouldn't want to walk around in the paisley patterns of the 1960s or the big hair of the 1980s today! Based on the Latin root cipere, "to grasp," perception refers to the way you take in the world through your senses. Have you ever thought a stair was bigger than it really was so your step was too heavy? Your depth perception was off. The noun also means the opinions and beliefs you've formed about something. Your perception of your room after you've cleaned it is different than your parents' — you see clean and they probably don't.
Vocabulary lists containing perception
Vocabulary from the Introduction to "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal
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"Animal Wisdom" and "The Last Wolf," Vocabulary from the poems
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Content Summary G.2: Regionalization
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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:
That perception was challenged this year, when Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos became the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
“That gave those in charge the ability to pick and choose who would vote and who would not vote based on their perception of standards.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Evans’s art didn’t change, but its environments did—proof that curatorial framing shapes perception, and that her universe, like any living cosmology, continues to unfold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
If the genders were reversed and your husband was the one with $8 million saved for retirement and had sold a business, the public and private perception of your relationship would likely be quite different.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
Alvarez seconded Nahmias’s perception that the cyclotron was used “as a radioactivity factory first of all because great numbers of new radioisotopes could be discovered that way with very little effort.”
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
Griffin said part of the point of his donation was to counter those perceptions.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 30, 2026
Don’t make their perceptions your problem, and try not to judge them too harshly.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
We encountered stark contrasts in perceptions of Pinto wherever we went.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
When you hear a voice that sounds like your own, that triggers perceptions of competence, morality and integrity, Hyun says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
Everything on this island was slowly showing me how distorted such perceptions were; slowly teaching me that the earth was not just for us but for all the creatures on it.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
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.
