Etymologically
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intuition

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌɪn.tjuːˈɪʃ.ən/, /-t͡ʃuː-/[1]
  • US: /ˌɪn.tuˈɪʃ.ən/, /ˌɪn.tjuˈɪʃ.ən/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English intuicioun,[2][3][4] borrowed from Late Latin intuitiō (“a looking at, consideration, contemplation”),[4][3][5][6][7][8] a noun of action from the past participle of Latin intueor (“to look at, consider, contemplate”),[4][9][3] which is formed from in- (“at, on”) and tueor (“to look at, watch over”).[4][3][10] The OED, Skeat and Weekley take it as coming through French intuition,[9][11][12] and Barnhart through the Middle French form intuition;[10] Klein gives the Latin source as Medieval Latin.[13] The Latin verb is also the source of intuit and intuitive, and tueor of tuition and tutor.[4][10][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Insight or spiritual perception: about 1450, in a Middle English poem on famous women, where Eve "hadd intuycyon" of her maker.[2] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century and calls it originally theological,[4] and the Oxford Dictionary of English says it first denoted spiritual insight or immediate spiritual communication.[7] The OED's first quotation is from 1497, for the act of looking upon or into something.[9]

Semantic evolution

The literal Latin sense, a looking at or contemplation, was used from 1497 to 1664, and Hoad notes the word was rare before the 17th century.[9][14] In the 17th century it also meant mental consideration (1628–1755) and regard or reference, as in with intuition to (1626–1718).[9] Scholastic philosophy used it for the immediate knowledge ascribed to angels and spirits, for whom seeing and knowing are one (1652).[9][6] Modern philosophy made it the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without reasoning, from about 1600 in Hooker,[9] with later distinctions between intellectual (1660) and sensory intuition (1796, in an account of Kant).[9] Johnson (1755) defined it as "sight of any thing", used mostly of a mental view, and immediate knowledge.[15] The general sense, direct insight without reasoning, appears in 1780, in Horace Walpole,[9] and Hoad likewise dates it to the 18th century.[14] Collins adds the weakened sense of a hunch.[16]

Timeline

  • c. 1450 – insight, spiritual perception.[2]
  • 1497 – the act of looking upon or into; contemplation (obsolete by 1664).[9]
  • before 1600 – in philosophy, immediate apprehension by the mind without reasoning.[9]
  • 1626 – regard, reference (obsolete by 1718).[9]
  • 1628 – mental view, consideration (obsolete by 1755).[9]
  • 1652 – in scholastic philosophy, the immediate knowledge of spiritual beings.[9]
  • 1780 – direct or immediate insight in general.[9]
  • 1796 – immediate apprehension by the senses, in Kantian philosophy.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The ability to know or understand something at once, without reasoning or proof.[5][16][9]
  2. Knowledge or a belief gained in this way; an instinctive feeling or hunch: Her intuition told her the shop would close early that day.[16][5]
  3. In philosophy, the immediate apprehension of an object or truth by the mind or the senses, as in Kant's account of knowledge.[16][9]
  4. (obsolete, 1497–1664) The act of looking at or contemplating something; a view.[9][5][15]

Word family

  • intuitional
  • intuitionally
  • intuit
  • intuitionism
  • intuitive

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  14. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins