perception
noun
Simple meaning
The way you notice, see or understand something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
persehpshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɚˈsɛpʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information.
Conscious understanding of something.
Vision (ability)
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information.
Used this way, perception is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use perception
- “A man admired for the depth of his perception.”noun
- “Luther had a new perception of the Bible.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Apparent power to perceive things that are not present to the senses.
The sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and throat convey information about the chemical composition of a soluble stimulus.
The auditory perception of musical sounds.
The sensation that results when olfactory receptors in the nose are stimulated by particular chemicals in gaseous form.
The perception of sound as a meaningful phenomenon.
The perception of sound as a meaningful phenomenon.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.