perceiving

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of perceive.

   Perceiving a shift in the crowd's mood, the speaker changed tack.

   Perceiving the difference between the two shades takes practice.

   Note

   The same -ing form does two verbal jobs. As a participle it opens a clause (Perceiving a shift, the speaker changed tack) or follows be in progressive forms. As a gerund it names the activity yet still takes a direct object: perceiving the difference. Either job can carry either meaning of perceive, noticing through the senses or interpreting a certain way. Once it takes the and of, it has become the noun for the act.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act by which something is registered or understood through the senses or the mind.

   The perceiving of depth relies on input from both eyes working together.

   A child's perceiving of spoken language grows quickly in the first years.

   Similarperception, apprehension, recognition

   Note

   As a noun it can be counted, naming single acts of perception one by one. It takes a plural: Timothy Chappell's Reading Plato's Theaetetus (2004) groups perceivings with seeings, hearings, smellings and burnings, all nouns built the same way from a verb plus -ing. The plural suits writing that treats each act as a separate episode rather than a general faculty.

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