perceptual
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of perceptual
1875–80; percept + -ual, on the model of concept, conceptual
Explanation
Something that you experience through your senses is perceptual. You'll have perceptual problems in school if you accidentally wear your sunglasses instead of your reading glasses. The adjective perceptual is all about perceiving, or sensing things. It's your perceptual ability that allows you to make sense of the world around you by seeing and hearing. In science, the various sensory systems (such as visual and auditory abilities) are known as perceptual systems. The Latin root is percipere, which means "gather or seize" and also "grasp with the mind."
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.
"Quiet cars, finely engineered for a really comfortable drive, will simply give you less perceptual cue that you're travelling at a particular speed. So that makes it easier to slip over a limit."
From BBC • Dec. 10, 2025
Since the 1950s, key figures launched important genres, including hard-edge abstract painter John McLaughlin, harbinger of Light and Space perceptual art, and assemblage master Wallace Berman.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 1, 2025
“One thing that happens in infancy is this process of perceptual narrowing, where babies in some ways have broader perceptual abilities than adults.”
From Salon • May 7, 2025
Typical psychotic-like experiences include perceptual distortions and hallucinations, suspicious paranoid thinking, delusions and bizarre, unusual thoughts.
From Science Daily • Nov. 19, 2024
Along with the Post-Impressionists and, more recently, Op artists, color theorists have tried to set down their understanding of colors as perceptual and artistic laws equivalent to those of optical physics.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
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.
