percipient

From Latin percipiēns, present participle of percipiō (“to perceive”).

percipient (comparative more percipient, superlative most percipient)

1. Having the ability to perceive, especially to perceive quickly.
   • 1801, Robert Southey, “The Sixth Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume II, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC, page 8:

     Fasting, yet not of want
     Percipient, he on that mysterious steed
     Had reach’d his resting-place,
     For expectation kept his nature up.

   • 1874, John Tyndall, Advancement of Science: The Inaugural Address of Prof. John Tyndall ... Delivered Before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Belfast, August 19, 1874‎, New York: Asa K. Butts & Co., page 43:

     [...] he calls attention to the use of glasses [...] The eye itself is no more percipient than the glass; is quite as much the instrument of the true self, and also as foreign to the true self, as the glass is.

2. (psychology, education, dated) Perceiving events only in the moment, without reflection, as a very young child.

percipient (plural percipients)

1. (philosophy, psychology) One who perceives something.
   • 1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 99 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)

     As anatomy, physiology and, later, psychology have developed into more or less well-organized sciences, they have necessarily and rightly come to incorporate the study of, among other things, the structures, mechanisms, and functionings of animal and human bodies qua percipient.

2. (parapsychology) One who has perceived a paranormal event.

   In the course of investigating the haunting, I interviewed several percipients.

• perceive
• perceptive
• perceptor

• precipient

percipient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of percipiō