per se
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /pəˈseɪ/
ipa: /pɚˈseɪ/
ipa: /pɚˈsiː/
ipa: /pəˈsæɪ/
rhymes: -eɪ
rhymes: (General American) -iː
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin per sē (“by itself”), from per (“by, through”) and sē (“itself, himself, herself, themselves”).
Senses: examples: text: Near-synonyms: by definition, by nature, essentially, in essence, ipso facto, intrinsically; see also Thesaurus:intrinsically
text: Some people say that a hangover is caused by impurities in the drink, not by the alcohol per se.
text: They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
ref: c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
text: A proposition is per se known as regards itself , but not per se known as regards us, when it has no medium of proof a priori, nor is its truth directly and immediately evident to us on first apprehending the terms.
ref: 1877, Walter Henry Hill, Elements of Philosophy: Comprising Logic and Ontology Or General Metaphysics, page 220:
text: What words actionable. to subject the offender to contempt, and deprive him of public confidence, and to accuse one who is a notary public of procuring a false affidavit to be made before him is libelous and actionable per se.
ref: 1909, Emlin McClain, A Digest of Decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa: From the Organization of the Territory Until the End of January, 1908 ..., page 3672:
text: Always have the greatest excesses and the most reprehensible practices been committed when backed up by or given the sanction of religion. But all this represents no derogation of the original phallic cult per se. It merely proves that the gods have always been what we have made them.
ref: 1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page vi:
text: It's not that I've got anything against kids per se, but I believe in discipline.
ref: 2007, Tima Smith, Per Se: An Anthology of Fiction, page 176:
synonyms: by itself
in itself
in and of itself
as such
sui generis
glosses: Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature.
examples: text: It's not a museum per se, but they do have some interesting artefacts.
text: I take photographs. But I'm not a photographer.
Per se.
Right. Not per se.
Right.
ref: a. 1998, anonymous conversationalists, quoted in, 1998, Tom Chiarella, Writing Dialogue, Story Press, page 12
text: It's not a race against the competition per se: that's not how it feels to me when I'm working on a project.
ref: 2012 March 22, Pamela Burnard, Musical Creativities in Practice, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 202:
text: Annoyed, frustrated, edgy, but not angry per se.
ref: 2012, Tes Hilaire, Deliver Me From Temptation: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors:
text: As we shall see, since the 1960s, the ELN, although not a religious movement per se, represents an interesting amalgam of beliefs that helped serve in recruitment, commitment, and identification of a revolutionary belief and ritual.
ref: 2013 February 12, Kjell-Ake Nordquist, Gods and Arms: On Religion and Armed Conflict, Wipf and Stock Publishers, →ISBN, page 70:
text: Through this lingual haze we quickly established that Suleyman was a member of “Batono” Abashidze's personal militia, but not a policeman per se
ref: 2015, Thomas Goltz, Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the ...:
text: What she meant was, It's not a baby per se. It's a He-bean (she was already certain the bean was a boy).
ref: 2016 September 19, Karen Karbo, Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me: A Novel, Hawthorne Books, →ISBN:
text: He sells a story, flirts with a waitress, looks handsome, has writer's block, and feels sorry for himself, but it's not a story about the Depression per se: it could be set in any time period, almost anywhere.
ref: 2017 May 22, Stephen Pimpare, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen, Oxford University Press, →ISBN:
text: There is no legal federal framework yet for how to regulate stablecoins per se.
ref: 2021 October 27, Jeanne Sahadi, “How stablecoin is different than other cryptocurrencies … and how it’s not”, in CNN:
synonyms: exactly
strictly speaking
sensu stricto
stricto sensu
truly
qualifier: more loosely
glosses: In a true or literal sense; as one would expect from the name or description.
raw_tags: in the negative
examples: text: Everything not applying per se in one of these two senses is called an accident.
ref: 1988, J. van Rijen, Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities, page 137:
text: Peter is per se alive, endowed with intellect, and the faculty of laughter, the artist is per se one who fashions objects. But Peter is per accidens a sufferer from influenza
ref: a. 2005, Jacques Maritain, An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 153:
text: Thus, unless there exists some being that exists per se, the origination of esse in a chain of composites itself remains unexplained and quite mysterious. And the existence of a being that exists per se is affirmed through a denial of an infinite regress of essence-esse composites causing other such composites.
ref: 2015, Gaven Kerr, Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia:
text: Aquinas rejects this position, because then God would not be per se necessary, but would be necessitated by his own divine nature to create. Hence to be per se necessary, God must be free to create.
ref: 2022 October 15, Gaven Kerr, Collected Articles on the Existence of God, BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 218:
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
sciences
glosses: As the principle of its own determination and positing itself.
examples: text: The law makes drunk driving illegal per se.
text: In an effort to assist states that may have recently adopted or expect to adopt administrative per se, NHTSA has collected sample copies of forms and a brief description of the administrative procedures from selected states with in-place programs.
ref: 1986, Administrative Per Se: A Summary of State Forms and Procedures:
topics: law
coordinate_terms: eo ipso
ipso facto
glosses: Not leaving discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute.
Derived terms: ampersand
A-per-se
negligence per se