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Definition of "per se" []

  • Of, in, or by itself or oneself; intrinsically. (adverb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "per se" in a sentence
  • "Theologians agree that in the Hypostatic Union the immediate reason why the Sacred Humanity, though complete and individual, is not a person is that it is not a subsistence, not per se seorsum subsistens."
  • "Here, as always and everywhere, he betook himself to his “sinuous, easy, unpolemical” method, and thereby made his repugnance to the proposed change felt and understood in quarters which would never have listened to arguments from Leviticus, or fine distinctions between malum per se and malum prohibitum."
  • "The human nature of Christ does not exist per se seorsum, but in alio, in the Divine Personality of the Word."