Wiktionary

intuit

See also: intuït

English

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WOTD – 20 January 2018

Etymology

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A back-formation from intuition and intuitive; compare Latin intuitus (“observed; considered”), perfect participle of intueor (“to look at, upon or towards; to observe, regard; to consider, contemplate”), from in- (“in, inside”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁én (“in”)) + tueor (“to look or gaze at”) (from Proto-Indo-European *tewH- (“to observe; to look favourably upon”)). See tuition, tutor.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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intuit (third-person singular simple present intuits, present participle intuiting, simple past and past participle intuited)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To know intuitively or by immediate perception.
    • 1797, Emmanuel Kant, James Sigismund Beck [i.e., Jakob Sigismund Beck], “The Translator’s Preface”, in The Principles of Critical Philosophy, Selected from the Works of Emmanuel Kant Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin; and Professor of Philosophy in the University of Koenigsberg; and Expounded by James Sigismund Beck Extraordinary Professor in the University of Halle: Translated from the German by an Auditor of the Latter, London: Sold by J. Johnson, W. Richardson; Edinburgh: P. Hill, Manners and Miller; Hamburg: B. G. Hoffmann, →OCLC, page xxxix:
      Accordingly ſome have been pleaſed to name the complex of the phaenomena, so far as it is intuited i.e. apprehended immediately, the ſenſual world, but ſo far as its connection is thought according to univerſal laws of understanding, the intellectual world.
    • 1856, Hubbard Winslow, “First Principles”, in Elements of Moral Philosophy; Analytical, Synthetical, and Practical, New York, N.Y., London: D. Appleton and Company, →OCLC, footnote, page 298:
      The first principles of every science are innate, or native to the mind, only in the sense that such is its nature, that it directly intuits them, a priori, as necessary and absolute truths, independently of the affirmations of sense, experience, or any discursive proof.
    • 1865, Jesse H[enry] Jones, “Part I. The Seeking and the Finding.”, in Know the Truth; a Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation, including Some Strictures upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L[ongueville] Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer, New York, N.Y.: Published for the author by Hurd and Houghton; Boston, Mass.: Nichols and Noyes, →OCLC, page 22:
      The function of Pure Reason is, first:—to intuit, by an immediate perception, the a priori elemental principles which condition all being; second,—to intuit, by a like immediate perception, those principles, combined in a priori systematic processes, which are the conditional ideal forms for all being; and third,—again to intuit, by another immediate perception, precisely similar in kind to the others, the fact, at least, of the perfectly harmonious combination of all a priori elemental principles, in all possible systematic processes, into a perfect unity,—an absolute, infinite Person,—God.
    • 1922, A[rthur] A[ston] Luce, “The Method of Intuition”, in Bergson’s Doctrine of Intuition: The Donnellan Lectures for 1921, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: The Macmillan Co., →OCLC, page 29:
      Can the method [Henri Bergson's doctrine of intuition] be taught and learned and practised? Is an education in intuiting possible? Or do intuitions just come to the privileged, unasked, unsought?
    • 1961, V[idiadhar] S[urajprasad] Naipaul, “Among the Readers and Learners”, in A House for Mr Biswas, Russell edition, London: André Deutsch, →OCLC, part 2, page 206:
      Bhandat frowned. The words had made no impression on him. And Mr Biswas knew for sure then, what he had intuited and dismissed: Bhandat was deaf.
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Translations

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Further reading

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