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

• IPA^(key): /pəˈseɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /pɚˈseɪ/, /pɚˈsiː/
• 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

   • 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. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (chiefly in negative polarity environments) 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 artefacts.

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

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

   • 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

3. (philosophy) Being a thing that posits itself and is a principle of its own determination.
   • 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.

   • 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.

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

   • 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.

   • 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.

   • 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.

Usage notes

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

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

Translations

by itself

• Armenian: ինքնին (hy) (inkʻnin)
• 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.
   • 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.

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. on purpose
3. (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.

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