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perceptive

UK/pəˈsɛptɪv/US/pɚˈsɛptɪv/
adjectiveC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,969 of 15,258leans spoken

Perceptive means quick to notice and understand what others miss. A perceptive remark, highly perceptive, perceptive about people.

It is praise for noticing rather than for knowing, which is what separates it from clever. Do not confuse it with perceptible, which means able to be perceived — a perceptive person notices a perceptible difference.

Definitions of perceptive

  1. 1adjectiveperceptiveQuick to notice and understand what others miss.C1

    “She's very perceptive and noticed at once that I was upset.”

perceptive is a quality.

Also accepted in games: perspicacious

Where it comes from

Latin perceptivus comes from percipere, to seize or understand — per, thoroughly, plus capere, to take.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *keh₂p-

  2. Latin

    perceptīvus

  3. English, today

    perceptive

From Latin perceptīvus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

perceptive in the wild

  • Esthesic (UK aesthesic) and poietic are terms used in semiotics, the study of signs, to describe perceptive and productive levels, processes, and analyses of symbolic forms.

    Esthesic and poietic

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.