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 of extraneous 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 + , 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").

Support

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

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

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

  • In and of itself. Latin for "by itself."

    March 6, 2008

  • 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

  • I think it works better to replace something like "exactly" or "in and of itself." That help any?

    July 24, 2009

  • Yeah. Thanks c_b. My mind is finally at peace. ;-) Google doesn't answer everything!

    July 24, 2009