Perceive | Vocabulary

0:00- [David] Open your minds, wordsmiths. We're talking about the word perceive. Ah, it's one of those E before I words, some of the hardest to spell in English. Perceive is a verb. This verb means to notice something. You might also know it from its noun form, perception.

0:18Perception. It's a non-specific way of saying that your senses are picking something up. You can perceive sights, smells, tastes, sounds, feelings. Perception, perceiving, covers all of that. So this comes from Latin. All of it does. Because of the E before I thing in the verb form, I think it's a little easier to break it down as a noun, so let's look at perception.

0:43So per is a prefix that means completely or through. The cept part comes from capita, which you might also see as capt, C-A-P-T. It means to grasp, to grab. And ion is a noun-forming suffix, right, an ending that turns other words into nouns. So perception is when you grasp something completely, when you understand it.

1:10Let's take 10 seconds and come up with some similar words that contain these elements, per and capt and ion. Three, two, one. Let's jam. (cheerful upbeat music) Okay, here's some I came up with. Pervasive, an adjective meaning everywhere. Per means through and vadere means to go.

1:41Compare the word invade, right, to go in. So something that's pervasive has completely gone through a community. Pervasive influence, pervasive illness, pervasive trends. Capture, a verb meaning to grab, to take by force. This is probably as close a direct English translation as you can get of the Latin verb capere.

2:04Reception, a noun meaning getting something, receiving a thing. You might have bad reception in the dining room because the Wi-Fi is weak there. Or reception can mean a formal event like a wedding reception. The thing you are receiving is partygoers. You are welcoming them to celebrate with you.

2:22Let's use perception and perceive in a couple of sentences. Thanks to his keen powers of perception, Walter saw that the bridge was about to collapse and kept everyone away. He saw it. He noticed it, right? He looked at the bridge and he was like, "That structural beam exhibits signs of metal fatigue."

2:40Good eye, Walter. Thanks for saving lives. Let's do another one. Using her psychic powers, Jade perceived Vivek before he entered the room. Right, she's sensing him with, in this case, her psychic powers. And, of course, another term for psychic powers is extrasensory perception.

2:59Hmm? What we used to call the sixth sense. That's right, I'm putting more content in the outro. Try to stop me. Oh right, I forgot. I cannot be stopped. But you can't either because you can learn anything. David out.