Make Your Point

Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PERCEPTIVE & PERCEPTIBLE

See this issue on Make Your Point, Jr.

Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.

connect today's word to others:

Something perceptible is noticeable.

And something imperceptible, or too small to be noticed, can also be called ___prec_able.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

make your point with...

"PERCEPTIVE" & "PERCEPTIBLE"

To perceive something is to see it, hear it, notice it, or realize it.

Perceptive people are very smart because they notice things that other people don't or because they see and understand things very deeply.

And perceptible things are noticeable: we can see, hear, notice, or realize them. You call something perceptible when you need to point out that although it's small or subtle, it's there, and it's enough to be noticed.

Pronunciations:
Perceptive: "pur SEP tiv"
Perceptible: "pur SEP tib ull"

Part of speech:
Adjectives.
(Adjectives are describing words, like "large" or "late."
They can be used in two ways:
1. Right before a noun, as in "a perceptible thing" or "a perceptive person."
2. After a linking verb, as in "It was perceptible" or "He was perceptive.")

Buckle up! Here are the other common forms:
Perceive, perceived, perceiving, perception(s);
perceptively, perceptiveness/perceptivity;
imperceptive; imperceptiveness/imperceptivity;
perceptibly; perceptibility;
imperceptible, imperceptibly, imperceptibility.

How to use them:

Talk about perceptive people and their perceptive minds or perceptive powers, perceptive animals, perceptive comments, perceptive writing, perceptive looks and glances, etc.

We can be perceptive to the things we notice: "He's perceptive to the unspoken needs of his patients."

And, talk about perceptible sights and sounds, perceptible changes and effects, perceptible increases and decreases, perceptible differences and nuances, perceptible movements and gestures, and so on.

examples:

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is told by a socially awkward but perceptive narrator, one who can't help but see the world in terms of the psychological phenomena she learned from her father.

The garage was a jumble of objects, a storeroom with no perceptible organization.

study it now:

Look away from the screen to explain the definitions in your own words.

You’ll know you understand what "perceptive" means when you can explain it without saying "observant" or "watchful."

And you’ll know you understand what "perceptible" means when you can explain it without saying "enough to be seen" or "at least slightly significant."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "(Some author, artist, or speaker) offers a perceptive (description, explanation, interpretation, etc.) of (some topic or idea)."

Example: "Pinker offers a perceptive explanation of why the 'curse of knowledge' makes our writing bad and how we can lift that curse."

before you review:

Spend at least 20 seconds occupying your mind with the game below. Then try the review questions. Don’t go straight to the review now—let your working memory empty out first.

Our game this month is called Felicitous Names.

A felicitous name for a fictional character is a highly appropriate name, a name that fits that character so perfectly that you just know the writer picked it on purpose. This month, draw on your knowledge of both vocabulary and fiction to pick out the right name for the character described. Enjoy!

From our previous issue: Let's assign some felicitous names to these characters: 1, a pyromaniac cursed to burn in perpetual flames; 2, a friendly sidekick who happens to be a floating, talking skull; 3, a machine who breaks free from his mechanical identity to try to become human; and 4, a messy-haired hag who enjoys causing trouble just as much as she enjoys guiding people out of it. In no particular order, we'll use the names Nordom, Ignus, Morte, and Ravel. Who's who? Why?

Answer: From a video game called Planescape: Torment (developed by Black Isle Studios, published by Interplay Entertainment), the burning pyromaniac is Ignus, from the Latin ignis, "fire;" the skull is Morte, from mortis, "death;" the machine yearning for humanity is Nordom, which seems to me like a playful way of saying "a state of neither-ness or nor-ness;" and the troublemaker/helper is Ravel, a word that means both "tangle" and "disentangle."

Try this today: We need a felicitous name for a villain who's bulky, lumbering, powerful, deep-voiced, and gruff. Is it Sebastian, Triton, or Ursula? Why?

review today's word:

1. A close opposite of PERCEPTIVE is

A. OBLIVIOUS
B. QUAILING
C. TOPLOFTY

2. The difference between _____ may be perceptible only to _____.

A. yogurt and sour cream .. foodies
B. a misdemeanor and a felony .. lawyers
C. the colors "Forest Green" and "Evergreen" .. designers

Answers are below.

a final word:

Make Your Point is crafted with love and brought to you each weekday morning by Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From Liesl's blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.

To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

Answers to review questions:
1. A
2. C

Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PERCEPTIVE & PERCEPTIBLE See this issue on Make Your Point, Jr. Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to "Make Your Point" for a daily vocabulary boost.

Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PERCEPTIVE & PERCEPTIBLE

See this issue on Make Your Point, Jr.

Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.