apperˈceive, v.
Forms: 4–5 apar-, aper-, 5 appar, apper-, -ceive, -ceyve, -ceve, -seive, 5–6 apperceyve, 6 -ceave, -save, 7 apparceive.
[a. OFr. aperceveir, aparcevoir (tonic form aperceive), cogn. w. Sp. apercebir, Pg. aperceber:—late L. or early Rom. *appercipēre for *appercipĕre, f. ap-, ad- to + percipĕre to perceive. For change to app- see ap- prefix1.]
† 1. To perceive, observe, recognize, notice, remark: a. Obs. with simple obj.
| c 1300 Vox & Wolf 213 Ich the aperseiuede. c 1391 Chaucer Astrol. ii. §36. 44 Thanne shaltou aperceyve wel the Moevyng of a planete. c 1450 Lonelich Grail xxxviii. 309 Non man hym aparceyven myhte. 1494 Fabyan i. ii. 9 The which Temple, when Brute had apperceyued, anone he yode into it. 1549 Chaloner Erasm. Moriæ Enc. S iv b, Some devoute persones..did, without aperceivyng the difference, drinke lampe oyle in steede of wyne. 1614 W. Browne Sheph. Pipe i. 25 When apparceived had she this, she cry'd. |
b. with
of,
subord. clause, or
absol.| c 1320 Seuyn Sag. (W.) 1433 The burgeis aparseiued of his wiue Fele nightes was gon him fram. 1491 Caxton Vitas Patr. (W. de W.) i. viii. 13 a/2 The holy man aperceyuyd that the bestes were almost deed. 1588 A. King Canisius' Catech. H vj, As ȝow may appersave be yis calculation. |
2. Psychol. To be or become conscious of perceiving; to comprehend (something perceived) by a mental act which unites and assimilates the perception to a mass of ideas already possessed; to have apperception of: see
apperception.
| 1876 J. Sully in Mind Jan. 41 Where two impressions are simultaneously apperceived, it is because they are such as can be brought under one complex impression as parts of the whole. 1892 ― Human Mind I. 163 The new presentative element is said..to be apperceived or assimilated by a pre-existing cluster of ideas or an ideal mass. 1894 Academy 7 July 6/2 A thousand people, observes Lange, may read Virgil; but every one will apperceive him differently. |
Hence
apperˈceiving ppl. a.;
apperceiving mass [
cf. J. F. Herbart's expression (1825) ‘appercipirende Vorstellungsmasse’]
= apperception mass (see next, 3 b, and
cf. apperceptive mass and
mass n.2); whence
apperˈceivingly adv.| 1890 [see apperception, 3 b]. 1893 C. De Garmo et al. tr. Lange's Apperception (1896) 101 When ideal norms are apperceivingly active in the field of knowledge..true culture is attained. |
| 1890 W. James Princ. Psychol. II. xix. 109 A child who hitherto has seen none but four-cornered tables apperceives a round one as a table; but by this the apperceiving mass (‘table’) is enriched. 1914 R. M. Jones Spir. Reformers in 16th & 17th Cent. xiii. 263 The representative of the old system..condemning a dawning movement which with his apperceiving material he could not understand. |