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nd to perceive and understand; the power, act, or process of grasping with the intellect; perception; understanding; as, a comprehension of abstract principles.

f apprehending of forming an idea in the mind; the power of recalling a past sensation or perception. Under the article of conception, I shall confine myself to that faculty whose province it is to enable us to form a notion of our past sensations, or of the objects of sense that we have formerly perceived. Stewart.…

Immediate knowledge or perception of the presence of any object, state, or sensation. See the Note under Attention. Annihilate the consciousness of the object, you annihilate the consciousness of the operation. Sir W. Hamilton. And, when the steam Which overflowed the soul had passed away, A consciousness remained that…

Nice and refined perception and discrimination; critical niceness; fastidious accuracy. That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England. Macaulay.

Critical perception or scrutiny; judgment based on such scrutiny; esp., perception pf, or judgment concerning, motives and character. The quick eye for effects, the clear diagnosis of men's minds, and the love of epigram. Compton Reade. My diagnosis of his character proved correct. J. Payn. Differential diagnosis (Med.…

Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. Job xvii. 7. The understanding is dim. Rogers.

Having dim sight; lacking perception. -- Dim"-sight`ed*ness, n.

Dullness, or want of clearness, of vision or of intellectual perception. Dr. H. More.

To make dull, stupid, or sluggish; to stupefy, as the senses, the feelings, the perceptions, and the like. Those [drugs] she has Will stupefy and dull the sense a while. Shak. Use and custom have so dulled our eyes. Trench.

The sense of hearing; the perception of sounds; the power of discriminating between different tones; as, a nice ear for music; -- in the singular only. Songs . . . not all ungrateful to thine ear. Tennyson.

A fancied perception of flashes of light, a symptom of epilepsy; hence, epilepsy itself; convulsions.

fight; as, three armies encountered at Waterloo. I will encounter with Andronicus. Shak. Perception and judgment, employed in the investigation of all truth, have in the first place to encounter with particulars. Tatham.

Relating to objects situated within the eye; esp., relating to the perception of objects in one's own eye.

Of delicate perception or close and accurate discrimination; not easy to satisfy; exact; nice; fastidious; as, exquisite judgment, taste, or discernment. His books of Oriental languages, wherein he was exquisite. Fuller.

philosophy or doctrine which recognizes or deals only with externals, or objects of sense perception; positivism; phenomenalism.

To have perception by the touch, or by contact of anything with the nerves of sensation, especially those upon the surface of the body.

An act or state of perception by the sense above described; an act of apprehending any object whatever; an act or state of apprehending the state of the soul itself; consciousness. The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. Shak.

arts to anything a peculiar odor or taste, gratifying to the sense of smell, or the nicer perceptions of the palate; a substance which flavors.

Quick of perception; alert; sharp. [Scot.] Jamieson.

A short, hurried view; a transitory or fragmentary perception; a quick sight. Here hid by shrub wood, there by glimpses seen. S. Rogers.