Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- prep. To, for, or by each; for every: Gasoline once cost 40 cents per gallon.
- prep. According to; by: Changes were made to the manuscript per the author's instructions.
- prep. By means of; through.
- adv. Informal For each one; apiece: sold the cookies for one dollar per.
- adv. Informal Per hour: was driving at 60 miles per.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Through; by means of. A Latin preposition, the source of the prefix per-, and used independently in certain Latin phrases common in English use, as per se, per saltum, especially in law phrases, as per capita, per curiam, per pares, per stirpes, etc. and certain common commercial phrases, as per centum, per diem, per annum, whence, by an imperfect translation, as a quasi-English preposition, in similar commercial phrases with an English noun, as per day, per week, per year, per hour, per hundred, per dozen, etc., per bearer, per express, by credit as per ledger, received per steamer Southampton, etc.
- A prefix of Latin origin, meaning primarily ‘through.’ See the etymology. It occurs chiefly in words formed in Latin, as in
peract , peragrate, perambulate, etc. Though the primary sense of per- is usually distinctly felt in English, it is scarcely used in the formation of new words. - As an inseparable prefix of intensity, ‘thoroughly,’ ‘very,’ as in peracute, perfervid, pellucid; specifically, in chem., noting the maximum or an unusual amount, as peroxid, the highest oxid, or an oxid containing more oxygen than the protoxid, etc.
- n. In petrography, in the quantitative system of classification of igneous rocks (see rock), a prefix used to form adjectives, and showing that the factor or component indicated is present in any division of igneous rocks, alone or in extreme amount — that is, that its ratio to another factor is greater than : as, peralkalic, perfelic, perfemane, perfemic, etc.
- n. An abbreviation of period.
Wiktionary
- prep. for each
- prep. used in expressing ratios of units
- prep. via (the), by (the), through (the) (followed by Latin name for an orifice)
- prep. in accordance with
GNU Webster's 1913
- prep. Through; by means of; through the agency of; by; for; for each.
Per is also sometimes used with English words.
Etymologies
- Latin; see per1 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Kilwardby also stresses that in a per se necessity sentence, the subject must be ˜something belonging in itself to that predicate™ (˜per se aliquod ipsius predicati™), by which he seems to mean that the subject has the predicate as an essential property, i.e., such that it has the predicate as a necessary property through itself and not through something else.”
“Copper prices have since risen from less than US$1 per pound to more than US$3 per pound (about �per kilogram), driven in large part by growing demand from China.”
“Why attacks on humans were measured in millions per incident instead of the standard #-per 100,000 people-per year?”
“I've seen that "5% success rate" in discovery during several nasty disputes--I'm a hired gun called in AFTER the execrement has hit the rotary air-moving device--and every time further inquiry revealed that the percentage rate was per _submission event_, not _per manuscript_.”
“He reasons that, since the more guests he has, the smaller the cost per person, then if he can only entertain extensively enough, the cost _per caput_ will be _nil_.”
“Others read _per vos per liberos vestros_; but this is wrong, and the repetition of _per_ is bad: we never intreat persons by themselves, but by something that is dear to them.”
“A limit of sixteen months is assigned, within which pledges must be redeemed or they become the property of the pawnbroker; and the interest charged, formerly four per cent., is now fixed at three per cent. _per month_.”
“Peruvian guano, sulphate of ammonia, soda-saltpeter, fish and flesh manures, bones and urine, cost the farmer more money per ton than any other manures he buys or makes, superphosphate of lime excepted, and this does not find sale, for general purposes, unless it contains several _per cent. _ of nitrogen.”
“Many of them pay from two to eight per cent. _per month_.”
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852
“The witnesses had all been placed on an allowance of thirty francs per diem, which seems as good a device to invalidate their evidence as could have been adopted, and many are supposed to have come forward only _per chiappar il denaro_.”
Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) From the Original Family Documents
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘per’.
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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multiple meaning words
These words seem very familiar but are awfully-versatile and oftentimes serve senses exceptionally beyond people's presumptions ...
sense, serve, please, say, profile, draw, weather, bear, project, ship, profiler, tune and 140 more...
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Prefixes
intra, inter, ir, in, im, il, magni, hydro, hydr, homo, hetero, intro and 71 more...
oroboros Rep in reverse. Slang for agent or reputation. Nov 2, 2007