- the act or the effect of perceiving
- insight or intuition gained by perceiving
- the ability or capacity to perceive
- way of perceiving; awareness or consciousness; view: advertising affects the customer's perception of a product
- the process by which an organism detects and interprets information from the external world by means of the sensory receptors
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2026
per•cep•tion /pɚˈsɛpʃən/USA pronunciation
n.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- the act or ability of perceiving: [uncountable]my perception of her hostility;demonstrated keen perception in their ability to solve problems;depth perception. [countable] Perceptions change when you get to know people better.
per•cep•tion
(pər sep′shən),USA pronunciation n.
per•cep′tion•al, adj.
- the act or faculty of apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind;
cognition;
understanding. - immediate or intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological, or aesthetic qualities;
insight;
intuition;
discernment:an artist of rare perception. - the result or product of perceiving, as distinguished from the act of perceiving;
percept. - Psychologya single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present.
- Lawthe taking into possession of rents, crops, profits, etc.
- Latin perceptiōn- (stem of perceptiō) comprehension, literally, a taking in. See percept, -ion
- Old French percepcïon)
- Middle English percepcioun (1350–1400
- 1. awareness, sense, recognition.
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
perception /pəˈsɛpʃən/ n
'perception' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
acute
- aesthesia
- apperceive
- beyond
- blunt
- blur
- clairvoyance
- cognition
- cognizance
- colour
- configuration
- consonance
- cultural cringe
- discernment
- dull
- ego
- ESP
- experience
- extrasensory
- extrasensory perception
- fine
- gross
- hallucination
- haze
- idea
- illusion
- imagination
- imperceptive
- intuition
- ken
- neurosis
- objective
- parietal lobe
- -pathy
- penetration
- perceptual
- phantasm
- phenomenon
- phonetics
- reminiscence
- sagacity
- scope
- sense
- senseless
- sensible
- sentient
- sentience
- sight
- sixth sense
- activism