percipient
UK/pəˈsɪp.i.ənt//pɚˈsɪp.i.ənt/
percipient adjective: having the ability to perceive, especially to perceive quickly.
Adjective
percipient (comparative more percipient, superlative most percipient)
- Having the ability to perceive, especially to perceive quickly.
- Fasting, yet not of want
Percipient, he on that mysterious steed
Had reach’d his resting-place,
For expectation kept his nature up.1801, Robert Southey, “The Sixth Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume II, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC, page 8 - [...] he calls attention to the use of glasses […] The eye itself is no more percipient than the glass; is quite as much the instrument of the true self, and also as foreign to the true self, as the glass is.1874, John Tyndall, Advancement of Science: The Inaugural Address of Prof. John Tyndall ... Delivered Before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Belfast, August 19, 1874, New...
- Fasting, yet not of want
- Perceiving events only in the moment, without reflection, like a very young child.
Noun
percipient (plural percipients)
- One who perceives something.
- As anatomy, physiology and, later, psychology have developed into more or less well-organized sciences, they have necessarily and rightly come to incorporate the study of, among other things, the structures, mechanisms, and functionings of animal and human bodies qua percipient.1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 99 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)
- One who has perceived a paranormal event.
- In the course of investigating the haunting, I interviewed several percipients.
percipient meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
percipient in Tamil
- நுண் காட்சியாளர்
percipient in Urdu
- percipient
- ادراک کرنے والا idrāk karne vālā
percipient in Malayalam
- perceptive, discerning, insightful
- അവബോധമുള്ള, അവബോധാത്മകം, ഉൾക്കാഴ്ചയുള്ള, ഗുണജ്ഞ, സൂക്ഷ്മദർശിയായ, വിവേകിയായ
Forms of percipient
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more percipient |
| superlative | most percipient |
| Noun | |
| plural | percipients |
Origin of percipient
From Latin percipiēns, present participle of percipiō (“to perceive”).
Words formed from percipient
Words that rhyme with percipient
Questions about percipient
- What does percipient mean?
- Percipient means having the ability to perceive, especially to perceive quickly.
- What is percipient in Tamil?
- Percipient in Tamil is நுண் காட்சியாளர். See Percipient meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is percipient?
- Percipient can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce percipient?
- Percipient is pronounced /pəˈsɪp.i.ənt/ (UK).
Words near percipient in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: percipient (page history and authors); percipient (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ادراک کرنے والا (Urdu) (page history and authors); percipient (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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)-Neøn-percipient.wav.
Cite this entry: “percipient.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/percipient. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.