Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The faculty of knowing or understanding something without reasoning or proof. synonym: reason.
  • noun An impression or insight gained by the use of this faculty.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A looking on; a sight or view.
  • noun Direct or immediate cognition or perception; comprehension of ideas or truths independently of ratiocination; instinctive knowledge of the relations or consequences of ideas, facts, or actions.
  • noun Specifically, in philosophy, an immediate cognition of an object as existent.
  • noun [Some writers hold that the German Anschauung should not be translated by intuition. But this term is a part of the Kantian terminology, the whole of which was framed in Latin and translated into German, and this word in particular was used by Kant in his Latin writings in the form intuitus, and he frequently brackets this form after Anschauung, to make his meaning clear. Besides, the cognitio intuitiva of Scotus, who anticipated some of Kant's most important views on this subject, is almost identical with Kant's own definition of Anschauung. Intellectual intuition, used since Kant for an immediate cognition of the existence of God, was by the German mystics employed for their spiritual illumination (the term intuitio intellectualis was borrowed by them from Cardinal de Cusa), or light of nature.]
  • noun Any object or truth discerned by direct cognition; a first or primary truth; a truth that cannot be acquired by but is assumed in experience.
  • noun Pure, untaught knowledge.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A looking after; a regard to.
  • noun Direct apprehension or cognition; immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness; -- distinguished from “mediate” knowledge, as in reasoning; ; quick or ready insight or apprehension.
  • noun Any object or truth discerned by intuition.
  • noun Any quick insight, recognized immediately without a reasoning process; a belief arrived at unconsciously; -- often it is based on extensive experience of a subject.
  • noun The ability to have insight into a matter without conscious thought.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes.
  • noun A perceptive insight gained by the use of this faculty.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)
  • noun an impression that something might be the case

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English intuicioun, insight, from Late Latin intuitiō, intuitiōn-, a looking at, from Latin intuitus, a look, from past participle of intuērī, to look at, contemplate : in-, on; see in– + tuērī, to look at.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin intuitio ("a looking at, immediate cognition"), from Latin intueri ("to look at, consider"), from in ("in, on") + tueri ("to look, watch, guard, see, observe").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word intuition.

Examples

  • The word intuition comes from the Latin intueri, which means “to look upon”; it refers to our ability to observe a situation instantaneously, without our sense perception or our logic acting as intermediary.

    The Answer John Assaraf 2008

  • The word intuition comes from the Latin intueri, which means “to look upon”; it refers to our ability to observe a situation instantaneously, without our sense perception or our logic acting as intermediary.

    The Answer John Assaraf 2008

  • "Psychology," uses the term intuition in what he deems to be its

    Nature Mysticism John Edward Mercer 1889

  • The entire scheme of Christianity disappeared from my firmament; but, in the immediately previous years, I had been a reader of Swedenborg, and I held immovably an intuition of immortality, -- or, if the term intuition be denied me, the conviction that immortality was the foundation of human existence, grounded in my earliest thoughts, and as clear as the sense of light, -- and this never failed me.

    The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I William James Stillman 1864

  • I take this occasion to observe, that here and elsewhere Kant uses the term intuition, and the verb active (intueri Germanice anschauen) for which we have unfortunately no correspondent word, exclusively for that which can be represented in space and time.

    Biographia Literaria Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803

  • Not surprisingly, their heuristic - the equivalent of what we call intuition, or common sense - is that of Suburbia, which has been the predominant mode of white American thought since the late 1960s.

    MIDDLE CLASS ANGST: THE POLITICS OF LEMMINGS, Part I 2007

  • In Mind over Machine (1986), Dreyfus and Dreyfus oppose this trend and perform a valuable service by insisting on the centrality to intelligent behavior of what they call intuition—“the understanding that effortlessly occurs upon seeing similarities with previous experiences” (28).

    The Muse in the Machine David Gelernter 1994

  • I feel as if my intuition is at its peak - my dreams have more clarity, I'll just "know" which road to take or who to approach with a question, etc.

    An Interview With Ellen Mcdonough 2000

  • Lavoisier seems to have realised, by what we call intuition, that however great and astonishing may be the changes in the properties of the substances which mutually react, there is no change in the total quantity of material.

    The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry M. M. Pattison Muir

  • Mind you, it is only my idea -- what I call intuition, for want of a better word.

    The Crimson Blind

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.