Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb Of, in, or by itself or oneself; intrinsically.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb By itself; without
consideration ofextraneous factors . - adverb
As such ; as one would expect from the name. - adverb law As a matter of law.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Latin per sē : per, per + sē, itself.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Latin per se ("by itself"), from per ("by, through"), and se ("itself, himself, herself, themselves").
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Examples
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john commented on the word per se
In and of itself. Latin for "by itself."
March 6, 2008
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word per se
I am having severe difficulty understanding what the bleepity bleep this means! Can it replace 'technically' in a sentence? If John says it's 'by itself' but I don't think I could say I am per se. ??:-C
July 24, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word per se
I think it works better to replace something like "exactly" or "in and of itself." That help any?
July 24, 2009
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word per se
Yeah. Thanks c_b. My mind is finally at peace. ;-) Google doesn't answer everything!
July 24, 2009