per se

See also: perse, Perse, and persé

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin per sē (“by itself”), from per (“by, through”) and sē (“itself, himself, herself, themselves”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pəˈseɪ/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɚˈseɪ/, /pɚˈsiː/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /pəˈsæɪ/
• Rhymes: -eɪ, (General American) -iː

Adverb

per se (not comparable)

1. Without determination by or involvement of extraneous factors; by its very nature.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:intrinsically

   • 1877, Walter Henry Hill, Elements of Philosophy: Comprising Logic and Ontology Or General Metaphysics, page 220:

     A proposition is per se known as regards itself , but not per se known as regards us, when it has no medium of proof a priori, nor is its truth directly and immediately evident to us on first apprehending the terms.

   • 1909, Emlin McClain, A Digest of Decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa: From the Organization of the Territory Until the End of January, 1908 ..., page 3672:

     What words actionable. to subject the offender to contempt, and deprive him of public confidence, and to accuse one who is a notary public of procuring a false affidavit to be made before him is libelous and actionable per se.

   • 2007, Tima Smith, Per Se: An Anthology of Fiction, page 176:

     It's not that I've got anything against kids per se, but I believe in discipline.

   Some people say that a hangover is caused by impurities in the drink, not by the alcohol per se.

2. (colloquial, proscribed, chiefly in the negative) In a true or literal sense; as one would expect from the name or description.

   It's not a museum per se, but they do have some interesting artifacts.

   • a. 1998, anonymous conversationalists, quoted in, 1998, Tom Chiarella, Writing Dialogue, Story Press, →ISBN, page 12:

     I take photographs. But I'm not a photographer.

     Per se.

     Right. Not per se.

     Right.

   • 2012 March 22, Pamela Burnard, Musical Creativities in Practice, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 202:

     It's not a race against the competition per se: that's not how it feels to me when I'm working on a project.

   • 2012, Tes Hilaire, Deliver Me From Temptation: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors:

     Annoyed, frustrated, edgy, but not angry per se.

   • 2013 February 12, Kjell-Ake Nordquist, Gods and Arms: On Religion and Armed Conflict, Wipf and Stock Publishers, →ISBN, page 70:

     As we shall see, since the 1960s, the ELN, although not a religious movement per se, represents an interesting amalgam of beliefs that helped serve in recruitment, commitment, and identification of a revolutionary belief and ritual.

   • 2015, Thomas Goltz, Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the ...:

     Through this lingual haze we quickly established that Suleyman was a member of “Batono” Abashidze's personal militia, but not a policeman per se

   • 2016 September 19, Karen Karbo, Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me: A Novel, Hawthorne Books, →ISBN:

     What she meant was, It's not a baby per se. It's a He-bean (she was already certain the bean was a boy).

   • 2017 May 22, Stephen Pimpare, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen, Oxford University Press, →ISBN:

     He sells a story, flirts with a waitress, looks handsome, has writer's block, and feels sorry for himself, but it's not a story about the Depression per se: it could be set in any time period, almost anywhere.

3. (philosophy) As the principle of its own determination and positing itself.
   • 1988, J. van Rijen, Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities, page 137:

     Everything not applying per se in one of these two senses is called an accident.

   • a. 2005, Jacques Maritain, An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 153:

     Peter is per se alive, endowed with intellect, and the faculty of laughter, the artist is per se one who fashions objects. But Peter is per accidens a sufferer from influenza

   • 2015, Gaven Kerr, Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia:

     Thus, unless there exists some being that exists per se, the origination of esse in a chain of composites itself remains unexplained and quite mysterious. And the existence of a being that exists per se is affirmed through a denial of an infinite regress of essence-esse composites causing other such composites.

   • 2022 October 15, Gaven Kerr, Collected Articles on the Existence of God, BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 218:

     Aquinas rejects this position, because then God would not be per se necessary, but would be necessitated by his own divine nature to create. Hence to be per se necessary, God must be free to create.

4. (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.

   • 1986, Administrative Per Se: A Summary of State Forms and Procedures:

     In an effort to assist states that may have recently adopted or expect to adopt administrative per se, NHTSA has collected sample copies of forms and a brief description of the administrative procedures from selected states with in-place programs.

Usage notes

• Because this is originally a Latin phrase, it is sometimes italicized when it is written.

• Increasingly misspelled by English speakers as per say or persay, most Net searches for "per say vs persay" return numerous sites providing explanations, etymologies, history, and more.

Synonyms

• ipso facto, in and of itself, as such (in certain senses), sui generis (occasionally, in one of its senses), in itself, essentially, in essence, by itself, by definition, intrinsically

Derived terms

• ampersand
• A-per-se
• negligence per se

 

Translations

by itself

• Armenian: ինքնին (hy) (inkʿnin)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 本身 (zh) (běnshēn), 仅就……而言 (zh) (jǐn jiù...éryán)

• Czech: jako takový, (samo) o sobě, samo sebou
• Danish: i sig selv, som sådan, per se
• Dutch: op zich, per se (nl), an sich
• Esperanto: per si mem
• Estonian: iseseisvalt
• Finnish: sinänsä (fi), pohjimmiltaan, itsessään
• French: en soi (fr), per se (fr), en tant que tel (fr) m
• Georgian: როგორც ასეთი (rogorc aseti)
• German: per se (de), an sich (de), als solches
• Greek: ως έχει (os échei), καθεαυτού (el) (katheaftoú), εξ' ορισμού (ex' orismoú)
• Hebrew: כשלעצמו (kshe-le-ats-mo)
• Hungarian: mint olyan
• Icelandic: í sjálfu sér, út af fyrir sig
• Italian: di per se
• Japanese: それ自体 (sore jitai)
• Macedonian: сам по себе (sam po sebe)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: i seg selv, som sådan

• Persian: به خودی خود (fa) (be xodi-e xod), فی‌نفسه (fa) (fi-nafse)
• Polish: per se (pl), sam z siebie
• Portuguese: em si (pt), per se (pt)
• Romanian: în sine
• Russian: сам по себе́ (ru) m (sam po sebé)
• Spanish: per se (es)
• Swedish: i sig (sv), per se (sv)
• Turkish: bizahiti
• Ukrainian: сам по собі́ (sam po sobí), по су́ті (po súti), як такий (jak takyj)

as such; as one would expect from the name

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 顾名思义 (zh) (gùmíngsīyì)

• Finnish: sellaisenaan, varsinaisesti
• German: entsprechend seinem Namen, bezeichnungsgemäß, als solches

Adjective

per se (not comparable)

1. (philosophy) Positing itself and being a principle of its own determination.
   • 1980, Mortimer Adler, How to Prove There Is a God: Mortimer J. Adler's Writings and Thoughts About God, Open Court, →ISBN, page 197:

     Hence, God would have to be the immediate per se cause of some natural motions, but not of all. But no known natural motion is without a natural motion as its immediate per se cause.

   • 1988, J. van Rijen, Aspects of Aristotle’s Logic of Modalities, page 137:

     Before stating at 74b5ff. that the connection between the subject and predicate of the premisses of scientific inferences must not be accidental but per se, he introduces the technical terms 'about all' ( 'kata pantos' ) and 'per se' (' kath' hauto ') in order to clarify the meaning of this proviso.

   • 2014, Barrie Fleet, Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 2, page 97:

     The per se cause of the house is the building skill and the craftsman who exercises it, while the per accidens cause is the fair-skinned or the artistic man. Alexander says: 'Aristotle says that just as anything that exists is one thing per se and another per accidens (by “being what it is per se” he means the substance, and by "what is per accidens" he means the attributes of the substance), so a cause is one thing per se and another per accidens.

   • 2015, Gaven Kerr, Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia:

     They hold to the impossibility of an actual per se infinity, because in a per se series the effects have a dependence on their causes, in which case if the series were infinite, the ultimate effect would be dependent on an infinite chain of causes; and since an infinity cannot be traversed, the being of such an effect would never be explained.

2. (law) That does not leave discretion to the judge to take into account additional factors that could rebut the judgment, deriving the qualification from the statute.
   • 1981, Hugh Laurence Ross, Deterrence of the Drinking Driver: An International Survey‎^[1], 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.

   • 2006, Sheldon Kimmel, How and why the Per Se Rule Against Price-fixing Went Wrong, page 1:

     CBS (441 U.S. 1 [1979]) explains, the per se rule against price-fixing isn't to be taken literally.

References

• “per se”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “per se”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Esper, Peers, Prees, Reeps, Spree, esper, peers, pères, speer, spere, spree

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)

Adverb

per se

1. necessarily, absolutely, without fail
2. (rare) per se

Usage notes

The ‘necessity’ meaning is the usual one; the original Latin meaning as in English is rarely used and can be misunderstood.

Anagrams

• prees
• speer

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin per sē.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛr ˈsɛ/

Preposition

per se

1. (literary) per se (by itself)

Further reading

• per se in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• per se in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Adverb

per se (not comparable)

1. per se (without considering extraneous factors)

Spanish

Adverb

per se

1. per se

Further reading

• “per se”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014