Word.ws English Dictionary

per se

/pəˈseɪ//pɚˈseɪ/

per se adverb: without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature.

Adverb

per se (not comparable)

  1. Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature.
    • Near-synonyms: by definition, by nature, essentially, in essence, ipso facto, intrinsically; see also Thesaurus:intrinsically
    • Some people say that a hangover is caused by impurities in the drink, not by the alcohol per se.
  2. (nonstandard, more loosely) In a true or literal sense; as one would expect from the name or description.
    • It's not a museum per se, but they do have some interesting artefacts.
    • I take photographs. But I'm not a photographer.
      Per se.
      Right. Not per se.
      Right.a. 1998, anonymous conversationalists, quoted in, 1998, Tom Chiarella, Writing Dialogue, Story Press, page 12
  3. As the principle of its own determination and positing itself.
    • Everything not applying per se in one of these two senses is called an accident.1988, J. van Rijen, Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities, page 137
    • Peter is per se alive, endowed with intellect, and the faculty of laughter, the artist is per se one who fashions objects. But Peter is per accidens a sufferer from influenzaa. 2005, Jacques Maritain, An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 153
  4. Not leaving discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute.
    • The law makes drunk driving illegal per se.
    • In an effort to assist states that may have recently adopted or expect to adopt administrative per se, NHTSA has collected sample copies of forms and a brief description of the administrative procedures from selected states with in-place programs.1986, Administrative Per Se: A Summary of State Forms and Procedures

Adjective

per se (not comparable)

  1. Positing itself and being a principle of its own determination.
    • Hence, God would have to be the immediate per se cause of some natural motions, but not of all. But no known natural motion is without a natural motion as its immediate per se cause.1980, Mortimer Adler, How to Prove There Is a God: Mortimer J. Adler's Writings and Thoughts About God, Open Court, →ISBN, page 197
    • Before stating at 74b5ff. that the connection between the subject and predicate of the premisses of scientific inferences must not be accidental but per se, he introduces the technical terms 'about all' ( 'kata pantos' ) and 'per se' (' kath' hauto ') in order to clarify the meaning of this proviso.1988, J. van Rijen, Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities, page 137
  2. That does not leave discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute.
    • Until recently Denmark hesitated to adopt a formal per se law, preferring to give more discretion to its judges, but the general practice was to take blood tests and to convict those accused under the classical law if the blood alcohol concentration was greater than 100 mg./100 ml.1981, Hugh Laurence Ross, Deterrence of the Drinking Driver: An International Survey, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Transportation, page 80
    • CBS (441 U.S. 1 [1979]) explains, the per se rule against price-fixing isn't to be taken literally.2006, Sheldon Kimmel, How and why the Per Se Rule Against Price-fixing Went Wrong, page 1

per se meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Persian

per se in Tamil

உள்ளபடியே, தன்னிச்சையாக

per se in Malayalam

be itself, in itself, of itself
അതിൽത്തന്നെ, സ്വതേ, അതിതന്നെ, അതുകൊണ്ടു തന്നെ, സഹജമായി, ആന്തരികമായി

per se in Kannada

ವಸ್ತುತಃ, ವಾಸ್ತವಿಕವಾಗಿ, ಸ್ವಭಾವತಃ, ಅದರಷ್ಟಕ್ಕೆ

per se in Persian

in and of itself
به خودی خود be xodi-e xod, فینفسه fi-nafse

Examples of per se in a sentence

  • But all this represents no derogation of the original phallic cult per se.1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the...
  • It's not that I've got anything against kids per se, but I believe in discipline.2007, Tima Smith, Per Se: An Anthology of Fiction, page 176:
  • It's not a race against the competition per se: that's not how it feels to me when I'm working on a project.2012 March 22, Pamela Burnard, Musical Creativities in Practice, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 202:
  • Annoyed, frustrated, edgy, but not angry per se.2012, Tes Hilaire, Deliver Me From Temptation: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors:

Synonyms of per se

9 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Origin of per se

Borrowed from Latin per sē (“by itself”), from per (“by, through”) and sē (“itself, himself, herself, themselves”).

Words formed from per se

Words that rhyme with per se

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about per se

What does per se mean?
Per se means without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature.
What is per se in Tamil?
Per se in Tamil is உள்ளபடியே, தன்னிச்சையாக. See Per se meaning in Tamil.
How do you use per se in a sentence?
But all this represents no derogation of the original phallic cult per se.
What part of speech is per se?
Per se can be an adverb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce per se?
Per se is pronounced /pəˈseɪ/ (UK).

Words near per se in the dictionary

  1. per procurationem
  2. per rectal
  3. per rectum
  4. per saltum
  5. per say
  6. per se
  7. per stirpes
  8. per usual
  9. per vagina
  10. per vaginam
  11. per'lous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: per se (page history and authors); per se (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); per se (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); per se (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-per se.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-per se.wav.

Cite this entry: “per se.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/per_se. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.