per se
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin per sē (“by itself”), from per (“by, through”) and sē (“itself, himself, herself, themselves”).
Adverb
- necessarily
- In and of itself; by itself; without consideration of extraneous factors.
- As your substitute teacher, my issue is not about your respect for me per se, but to see that you are not causing disruptions for other students or giving me a bad impression of yourself.
- (chiefly in negative polarity environments) As such; as one would expect from the name.
- Well, that's not correct per se, but the situation is something like that.
- (law) Not leaving discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute.
- The law makes drunk driving illegal per se.
- 1981, Hugh Laurence Ross, Deterrence of the Drinking Driver: An International Survey, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Transportation, page 80:
- Until recently Denmark hesitated to adopt a formal per se law, preferring to give more discretion to its judges, but the general practice was to take blood tests and to convict those accused under the classical law if the blood alcohol concentration was greater than 100 mg./100 ml.
Usage notes
- Because this is originally a Latin phrase, it is sometimes italicized when it is written.
Quotations
- For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:per se.
Synonyms
- in and of itself; See also Thesaurus:intrinsically
Translations
necessarily — see necessarily
by itself
|
|
as such; as one would expect from the name
|
|
Dutch
Alternative forms
- (obsolete since spelling reform of 1995) persé
Etymology
From Latin per sē (“by itself”), from per (“by, through”) and sē (“itself, himself, herself, themselves”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /pɛrˈseː/
Audio (file)
Usage notes
The ‘necessity’ meaning is the usual one; the original Latin meaning as in English is rarely used and can be misunderstood.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.