percevoir

Forms

percevoir^[1] Old French parceivre, parçoivre, perçoivre, with persevoir from 1188.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French parceivre, inherited from Latin percipiō (“to seize, to perceive, to collect”).^[2][3][4] The Old French verb was remade with an infinitive in -evoir by a change of conjugation, a form found from 1188.^[2][3] The Latin verb is formed from per- (“through”) and capiō (“to take”), and meant to grasp with the senses, to understand and, in the imperial period, to collect fruits or taxes.^[2][3] Littré notes that Occitan percebre keeps the Latin stress on ⟨ci⟩, while French shows a lengthened form.^[5]

Compare Portuguese perceber.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in the Cambridge Psalter (mid-12th century), has the sense “to notice, to hear”: od oreilles parceif ma voiz “hear my voice with your ears”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, “to notice”, was taken over by the derivative apercevoir;^[2][3] percevoir kept the more intellectual sense “to understand, to realize”, found in Marie de France about 1170.^[2][3] At the end of the 13th century (1282) it took back from imperial Latin the sense “to collect money or taxes”, which apercevoir also had in the 13th and 14th centuries;^[2][3][4] Bloch and Wartburg date this sense from 1377.^[2][3][4] Since then the financial sense has gone with perception and percepteur, and the sensory one with perceptible and perceptif.^[3]

In philosophy and psychology it came to mean to form a representation of an object from sense data (1798).^[6] Etymonline traces the English perceive (c. 1300) to Anglo-French parceif and Old French perçoivre.^[7]

Timeline

• mid-12th century – Parceif in the Cambridge Psalter, “notice, hear”.^[2]
• c. 1170 – Marie de France uses it for “to understand”.^[2][3]
• 1188 – The form persevoir in Aimon de Varennes' Florimont.^[2]
• 1282 – First used of collecting money or taxes, in a Poitevin text.^[2][3]
• 1345 – The derivative perceveur “collector” appears.^[3]
• 1798 – The philosophical and psychological sense appears.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To perceive through the senses, to make out: percevoir un bruit lointain.^[6][2][1]
2. To grasp with the mind, to understand, to sense: percevoir un changement de ton.^[6][1]
3. (philosophy, psychology) To form a representation of objects from sense data.^[2][6]
4. To collect money owed, especially taxes, fees or fares: percevoir un loyer.^[2][5][1]

Word family

• apercevoir
• percevable
• trop-perçu

Related words

• concevoir
• recevoir
• perception
• perceptible
• percepteur
• Latin percipiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com