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The faculty of perceiving; the faculty, or peculiar part, of man's constitution by which he has knowledge through the medium or instrumentality of the bodily organs; the act of apperhending material objects or qualities through the senses; -- distinguished from conception. Sir W. Hamilton. Matter hath no life nor perce…

Of or pertaining to the act or power of perceiving; having the faculty or power of perceiving; used in perception. "His perceptive and reflective faculties." Motley.

The faculty, act or power of perceiving; perception. Mrs. Browning.

Having the faculty of perception; perceiving; as, a percipient being. Bentley. -- n.

The art of composing poems; poetical skill or faculty; as, the heavenly gift of poesy. Shak.

The art of apprehending and interpreting ideas by the faculty of imagination; the art of idealizing in thought and in expression. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language. Coleridge.

The practice or faculty of subsisting on many kinds of food.

Ability to act, regarded as latent or inherent; the faculty of doing or performing something; capacity for action or performance; capability of producing an effect, whether physical or moral: potency; might; as, a man of great power; the power of capillary attraction; money gives power. "One next himself in power, and…

ensible, as objects; capable of apprehending, as faculties. The latter term, presentative faculty, I use . . . in contrast and correlation to a "representative faculty." Sir W. Hamilton.

An original faculty or endowment. Nature in your principles hath set [benignity]. Chaucer. Those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering. Stewart.

To call forth; to call into being or action; esp., to incense to action, a faculty or passion, as love, hate, or ambition; hence, commonly, to incite, as a person, to action by a challenge, by taunts, or by defiance; to exasperate; to irritate; to offend intolerably; to cause to retaliate. Obey his voice, provoke him n…

The faculty of overcoming obstacles; aggressive energy; as, he has push, or he has no push. [Colloq.]

To rub or scratch out; to erase. [Obsoles.] Except we rase the faculty of memory, root and branch, out of our mind. Fuller.

Having reason, or the faculty of reasoning; endowed with reason or understanding; reasoning. It is our glory and happiness to have a rational nature. Law.

The faculty of capacity of the human mind by which it is distinguished from the intelligence of the inferior animals; the higher as distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, sense, imagination, and memory, and in contrast to the feelings and desires. Reason comprises conception, judgment, reasoning, and the int…

Having the faculty of reason; endued with reason; rational; as, a reasonable being.

amental principles; as, the regulative principles, or principles a priori; the regulative faculty. Sir W. Hamilton.

A recalling by the faculty of memory; remembrance. [Obs. & R.] Bp. Montagu.

nsciousness one portion of our retained knowledge in preference to another, we posses the faculty of representing in consciousness what is thus evoked . . . This representative Faculty is Imagination or Phantasy. Sir. W. Hamilton.

The act, or the faculty, of looking back on things past.