Word.ws English Dictionary

peruse

UK/pəˈɹuːz/

peruse verb: to examine or consider with care.

peruse: to examine or consider with care
Image: Liannadavis, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

peruse (third-person singular simple present peruses, present participle perusing, simple past and past participle perused)

  1. (transitive) To examine or consider with care.
    • Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her figure; I perused her features.1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter IV, in Jane Eyre. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 58
  2. (transitive) To read completely.
    • This survey may be made by perusing al Books and taking notice of all Mechanicall Inventions.1647, William Petty, The Advice to Hartlib
    • We are for reasons that, after perusing this manuscript, you may be able to guess, going away again this time to Central Asia […]1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
  3. (informal, transitive) To look over casually; to skim.
    • Haynes quickly perused the message, then took it to the captain on the bridge.2001, Doug Stanton, In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis, →ISBN, page 35
    • She asked Denise for the court file, which she fussed from her handbag. The woman perused it briefly and then beamed up at me.2005, Al Lovejoy, Acid Alex, →ISBN, page 98
  4. (intransitive, regional) To go from place to place; to wander.
    • I loved to straggle off in the mornings […], just perusing around for firewood.1957, Robert Ruark, The Old Man And The Boy, →ISBN, page 55

Noun

peruse (plural peruses)

  1. An examination or perusal; an instance of perusing.
    • A peruse of the website looked promising […]2008 September 12, Dave Robson, “Hi-tea, low cost!”, in Evening Gazette

peruse meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

peruse in Tamil

ஊன்றி, நுணுகிப்பார், பார்வையிடு

peruse in Urdu

معائنہ کرنا, نظر ثانی کرنا

peruse in Bengali

মনোযোগ দিয়ে পড়া, পরীক্ষা করা

peruse in Malayalam

സൂക്ഷിച്ചു വായിക്കുക, സൂക്ഷിച്ചുനോക്കുക, ആവർത്തിച്ചു വായിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
peruse in Kannada
ಓದು, ಎಚ್ಚರಿಕೆಯಿಂದ ಓದು, ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮವಾಗಿ ಅವಲೋಕಿಸು, ಸಾಂಗವಾಗಿ ಅಧ್ಯಯನ ಮಾಡು

Examples of peruse in a sentence

  • I didn't have time to peruse the resturant's menu, so I just ordered some random dish.
  • A small number of persons has ever perused Shakespeareanism in its entirety.
  • I've seen tickers peruse beer lists for new beers they haven't tried.

All 24 example sentences with peruse

Forms of peruse

Verb
third-person singular presentperuses
present participleperusing
past participleperused
pastperused
Noun
pluralperuses

Past tense of peruse: perused

Origin of peruse

From either Medieval Latin perūtor, perūsitō (“wear out”) or Anglo-Norman peruser (“use up”), originally leading to two concurrent meanings, but only those derived from "to examine" survive today. By surface analysis, per- + use.

Words formed from peruse

Words that rhyme with peruse

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about peruse

What does peruse mean?
Peruse means to examine or consider with care.
What is peruse in Tamil?
Peruse in Tamil is ஊன்றி, நுணுகிப்பார், பார்வையிடு. See Peruse meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is peruse?
Peruse can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce peruse?
Peruse is pronounced /pəˈɹuːz/ (UK).
What is the past tense of peruse?
The past tense of peruse is perused.

Words near peruse in the dictionary

  1. peruqued
  2. peruques
  3. perusable
  4. perusal
  5. perusals
  6. peruse
  7. perused
  8. perusement
  9. peruser
  10. perusers
  11. peruses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peruse (page history and authors); peruse (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); peruse (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Peruse (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); peruse (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); peruse (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-peruse.ogg, en-au-peruse.ogg.

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