Join free

percept

English · Français · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

percept¹

  • /ˈpɜːsɛpt/ UK
  • /ˈpɝsɛpt/ US

Where it comes from

A learned borrowing, after concept, from Classical Latin perceptum (“a proposition, principle, general idea”), from the neuter of perceptus (“perceived”), the past participle of percipiō (“to perceive”); see perceive. Coined by the Scottish metaphysician Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (1788–1856), in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, published posthumously in 1860 (see the quotation).

noun percepts

  1. archaic Something perceived; the object of perception. I shall, therefore, make no scruple in using the expression concept for the object of conception, and conception I shall exclusively employ to designate the act of conceiving. Whether it might not, in like manner, be proper to introduce the term percept for the object of perception, I shall not at p
  2. A perceived object as it exists in the mind of someone perceiving it; the mental impression that is the result of perceiving something. I see an inkstand on the table: that is a percept. Moving my head, I get a different percept of the inkstand.

percept²

  • /pəˈsɛpt/ UK
  • /pərˈsɛpt/ US

Where it comes from

Learned borrowing from Classical Latin percept-, the past participial stem of percipiō (“to perceive”). In etymology 2 sense 2, perhaps independently from percept (“something perceived”).

verb percepts · percepting · percepted

  1. obsolete, rare, transitive Synonym of perceive. And is not the highest speculation of it percepted and perfected by manuall instruments, and those fallacious too, as themselves complain?

    Similar: perceive

  2. transitive To make perceptible or distinct, to reveal. The lighter and darker shading of surfaces can be understood as a means for discrimination in percepting each viewpoint, and at the same time as spatial articulation — back, forward, oblique — of the pictorial space of the picture-plane.

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"percept." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/percept. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

percept. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/percept

Chicago

"percept." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/percept.

BibTeX
@misc{percept_2026,
  title = {percept},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/percept},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}